[Gllug] amongst the maddness

[William Palfreman]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Mike Brodbelt wrote:

> Bruce Richardson wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 08:22:57PM +0100, Tom Gilbert wrote:
> > > Then you'd better not listen to ESR. He's really flipped this time.
> > >
> > >  hacker Eric S. Raymond rained his thoughts like fresh water,
> > >  revealing that those who "disarmed all the non-terrorists on
> > >  those airplanes ... bear some moral responsibility"
> > >
> > > So all this happened because all the passengers weren't allowed to carry
> > > guns.
> > 
> > He isn't alone.  The postgresql general list has a whole thread going in
> > just how many armed air marshals would be needed.
> 
> Sadly, there are many otherwise rational Americans who believe "more
> guns" is an answer to their problems, and refuse to accept the evidence
> that more guns means more people get shot.

The theory is that of "equality of force".  In this case some guys armed
with _ceramic knives_ succeeded in killing themselves, everyone on board,
and thousands of others.  Equality of force would have passengers
routinely arming themselves in public places, and exchanging normal
bullets for special low-dispersion ones on planes, fatal to humans but
incapable of piecing the hull.  Having air marshals means carrying dead
weight on board, and inevitably higher seat prices.  It would also be a
very boring job.

The reason why equality of force is popular is that with a group of armed
people the majority will be proper normal people, so if anyone tries
anything like hijacking or even behaving in a threatening or rude manner,
normal people feel much braver about intervening to sort things out.  It
beats cowering at the back of a plane, or having to give false respect to
some dickhead who gets to act hard purely because having a criminal record
does him less harm than me - he spends a few months inside lifting
weights, then is back outside ruining London again, whereas if I was even
caught carrying a penknife it could destroy my career.  Equality of
force doesn't stop people being bad, but it does give the rest of us at
least the same chance as them.

Anyway, I can't really think of an obvious open source parallel, except
perhaps as a way of living a more independent life.  I've been wholly open
source for nearly two years now, and I definitely look down on people who
who are stuck on MS.  They seem dependent on a system that is ugly in
every way.  They do have some control, but always in a very indirect way.  
When MS announce the next crappy broken effort, (XP, .Net, whatever) they
have to learn to live with it, get used to it.  Well, that's what a lot of
Americans think about us on the gun thing.  They can't understand how we
could be such worms about it.  Its so easy - just an inanimate metal
object, some lead and a little explosive charge.  Lots of people make
their own.  Naturally they feel contempt for us and our dependence, as do
own own criminals and our very armed police and government.  Everyone
feels contempt for dependent people.

Bill.


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