From: dsgood@iphouse.com   
      
   Ric Locke wrote:   
      
   > People who aren't familiar with firearms generally overestimate their   
   > destructiveness. [misc]This is handy for gun-control promoters, since   
   > it makes the propaganda easier and yields an easily-cowed populace   
   > when they bring their own out[/misc]   
      
   1) It's also handy for gun-rights advocates.  "If you're armed, you're   
   safe!"  Joel Rosenberg and other gun _instructors_ make it plain that   
   guns aren't magic -- but some pro-gun members of the chattering classes   
   don't.   
      
   2) The only real success at taking away firearms that I know of was in   
   Japan.  And the shogunate did this by taking guns away from   
   _everybody_.  From soldiers, for example.  (This was probably a lot   
   easier to contemplate because many of those soldiers were feudal   
   followers of nobles rather than under direct central control -- and the   
   nobles weren't guaranteed to be loyal to the shogun.)  See Noel Perrin,   
   _Giving Up the Gun_.   
      
   --   
   --   
   Dan Goodman   
   "I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."   
   Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire   
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)