Okay, I see the strategic backup (or at least strategic retribution) angle. Sorta like having a gun-toting neighbourhood: you rob me, my neighbour shoots you.
But the robber has to believe he's at risk, and in the analogy, he just goes armed if he does.
And here you end up with one of those pan-Atlantic gun control debates. The US side says that an armed community is a polite community; the UK side normally argues that fewer guns in circulation is good, and only skilled operators should use them in limited circumstances (the Met's Armed Response Unit has a staff of 350).
Hm, that argument could be stretched to say that we're the skilled operators - stable, mature, reasonably non-partisan. But I think we'd be kidding ourselves to believe it.
Nations are pretty much getting on. The "current terror threat" is not nation-sized, and has never threatened anything on the scale of even one of our smaller, sillier wars. All talk that having submarine nukes which could pop up in the Gulf and glass Mecca is bogus and silly.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 08:14 pm (UTC)But the robber has to believe he's at risk, and in the analogy, he just goes armed if he does.
And here you end up with one of those pan-Atlantic gun control debates. The US side says that an armed community is a polite community; the UK side normally argues that fewer guns in circulation is good, and only skilled operators should use them in limited circumstances (the Met's Armed Response Unit has a staff of 350).
Hm, that argument could be stretched to say that we're the skilled operators - stable, mature, reasonably non-partisan. But I think we'd be kidding ourselves to believe it.
Nations are pretty much getting on. The "current terror threat" is not nation-sized, and has never threatened anything on the scale of even one of our smaller, sillier wars. All talk that having submarine nukes which could pop up in the Gulf and glass Mecca is bogus and silly.