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The reading you've given that quote is rather uncharitable, if perhaps heavily implied by the article's author. It's pretty obvious that Baber means he doesn't
by aaronem 12y ago
The reading you've given that quote is rather uncharitable, if perhaps heavily implied by the article's author. It's pretty obvious that Baber means he doesn't want his weapon falling into the hands of criminals, but he has no problem selling it to the military, to be put to whatever use they might find for it.
Granted, the question remains of whether US foreign policy, inasmuch as it deploys our military, is morally or ethically acceptable to you, but that's a point on which reasonable people can differ, and Baber's opinion on that point appears to differ from yours. If, from that difference, you choose to infer that Baber doesn't consider Afghans or Iraqis "people", that is of course entirely your prerogative.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoI gave two different ways to read it, you chose which one you thought I favoured. That said, he stated he didn't want to sell it to police departments, not the public, who couldn't legally buy it anyway, so I don't see how you think it is obvious that he means criminals when it says police. "Police departments asked for AA-12s, but Baber decided that the gun was too powerful to sell outside the military."
- aaronem 12y agoI submitted a third reading which strikes me as both more charitable, and almost certainly more accurate, than either of yours were. Nor did he state what you claim he did; it's the article author, not Baber as quoted, who equates civilian police and the military -- if Baber didn't want it in the hands of civilian police, why'd he donate one to the county sheriff?
- adaml_623 12y agoI imagine his motives for giving a virtually unique gun worth $10K to the local sheriff are pretty straightforward. Keeping the local officialdom on his side... probably not sinister just good politics