Daniel Jackson from The Equity Advantage left a comment on one of my posts, nicely pointing out what I was trying to say:

It’s kind of funny all the things we have to go through to “stay safe” when in reality there’s a backdoor that any criminal can easily take.

He then goes on to mention that the particular situation I talked about is similar to gun control:

[...] gun control laws don’t stop the criminals from getting guns - the criminals don’t go through legal channels. So the laws only make it harder for the law-abiding citizens to get guns.

I agree with it.

However, you knew that was coming , it reminded of a couple of times I thought of the issue. The problem is that I can’t really come up with the right solution (don’t we all just love to give the perfect solution to all problems?) And it’s not that different than what I had written.

Have you ever smoked? Or do you know someone that is smoking and has tried to quit a few times? Any smoker who tried to quit (succesfully or not) will tell you that, there’s still a chance of succeeding even if you have one once in a while at a party, bar etc. However, once you have bought one single pack you’re back at it.

What does this have to do with gun control?

Here’s the deal. I know and understand there’s many legitimate situations when people really need to protect themselves and that many times their only solution is to own a gun (read Jose’s post). For some reason, though, the following question keeps coming back to my mind: what if someone who has a gun because of relaxed laws (probably a not so mentally stable person) decides to use it not necessarilly for personal protection? There’s plenty of scenarios. Let’s say that person gets pissed off at his/her neighbour for whatever stupid reason, can’t control himself/herself and decides to use it. It was there. Just like the pack of cigarettes. You have it, you feel like using it, you use it.

I can already hear you guys. “Why should I be denied the chance to protect myself because of nut cases who can’t control themselves?” “Why did you end your previous post the way you did if you agree with strict security measures?” “Why you gotta be like that when all Daniel did was agree with you and emphasize your point?”

Now that I’m thinking about these possible reactions, I’m having second thoughts as to whether I should publish this post or not. (I think I will anyway.)

It’s because I’m not necessarily against tight security measures. However, what makes them seem pointless (and makes me angry) is not putting them in practice equally for everyone or not at all for some.

The answer to my problem lays in two words: stupidity and ignorance. The answer to Daniel’s problem lays in one word: corruption.

I’m quite positive there’s rules about securing the back doors to everything. For one reason or another, though, (see above paragraph) they are not put in practice.

Besides all these, there’s another issue that comes to mind. It seems to me that many times the Government (of any country) issues such tough security measures to gain public approval. Unfortunately there’s many people (ignorant, misinformed or completely uninformed) who buy into these kind of tactics. As a result, they might go on for quite a while.

I really don’t want to get into “the Government is to blame for everything that goes wrong” theory (I don’t agree with it). However, every now and then, it does feel like it. I’ll leave it to that.

Please leave your thoughts and please be kind .

Daniel, I really hope you got my point.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under Human Nature, Unanswered Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.