Subject: Re: She Had No Face
Of course. Again, that's a potential argument against eliminating civilian ownership of firearms. The context I raised those other countries was not to argue equivalence with the United States, but rather to point out the difference between your hypothetical policy (eliminate all limits on the governments ability to search and seize property) and the policy proposal of disarmament. Since the latter has actually been implemented in several relatively pleasant societies, while the former has only been implemented in security states and dictatorships, the latter is a far more credible policy alternative. There are certainly reasons you can argue it wouldn't be as good a policy in the U.S. than in other nations - but unlike your hypothetical, it is at least plausible for a free democratic western advanced society to adopt a "no firearms" policy and remain free. It might not actually be a good policy for every country, but it's within the realm of plausibility in a way that your hypothetical was not.

Oh, I don't know. If you let me search any citizen's private documents, residence and what not at will I bet I could put a huge dent in crime. Of course you're correct in that a) nobody would stand for that and b) it's absolutely not practical to do so and c) wouldn't necessarily eliminate crime to the level it would be claimed to do it at.

The point was to show that utopian solutions might sound good on paper but The Devil Is In The Details. The particular Devil in the case of gun confiscation would be the exponential increase in Boating Accidents (Sorry, officer, I was out on my boat with all my guns and ammo and they all just fell overboard. It must have been a freak wind gust or wave or something).