# All countries should have nuclear weapons **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 15, 2003, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185 "2003-02-15T00:37:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Texican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@Texican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Texican)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/21 "2003-02-15T13:00:04Z")
Your comparison would be more valid if you included the fact that convicted felons are prohibited from possessing firearms. I believe a similar analogy could be drawn to rogue states like Iraq and North Korea. ---
**Author:** ![Texican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@Texican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Texican)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/22 "2003-02-15T13:01:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MrTuffPaws \* > \*\*I don’t know. This sounds like a good idea to me. It would definitely keep the US in check (i.e. North Korea). Also, if anyone used a nuke in a first strike, they would be obliterated by the world as a whole. > > Keep in mind, that you would have to have the world governments insure that nuclear weapons don’t fall into the hands of radical groups, but on a government to government basis, sounds good. \*\* Yeah, letting North Korea run loose sounds like a great idea to me.:rolleyes: Anyone who really thinks this would be a good idea is living in a dream world. ---
**Author:** ![woolly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ebca7d/32.png) [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/23 "2003-02-15T13:35:00Z")
RSC0318, Desmostylus has already called you on this, but me too. To give you a sporting chance, and assuming you are capable of reading something more authoritative than an NRA press release, how about starting with the official statistic from the[Australian Institute of Criminology](http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/facts/2002/fig09.html) Alternatively, if that’s beyond you, a couple of snippets [ul] [li]The percentage of homicides committed with a firearm continued its declining trend since 1969[/li][li]There were 340 homicides in Australia in 2001[/li]In 2001, 16% of homicides (54) involved firearms [/ul] ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/24 "2003-02-15T17:10:43Z")
“Should” is debatable. “Will” – or at least “will if its leaders wish for it to” – is pretty much inevitable. I don’t even think we can prevent every latest incarnation of IRA/SLA/Kahane Chai/Black Panthers/etc from having them if they want them and work at it long enough. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/25 "2003-02-15T19:10:17Z")
I think about the issue raised here a lot on other topics when people say “well, the US has nukes, why can’t (fill in nation) have them?” Sure, you can. I hope you don’t mind us targeting a few at you. Oh, and your neighbors want them now. But, I think **tracer** was being [Swiftian](http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316ktexts/swift.html). ---
**Author:** ![DrLizardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@DrLizardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrLizardo)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/26 "2003-02-15T19:16:31Z")
The OP argument only works if we assume rationality on the part of all the players. Not an assumption I’m willing to make. ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/27 "2003-02-16T07:09:26Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Tradnor \* [ul][li]There will always be countries developing nuclear weapons for their own interests.[/li][li]If nuclear weapons are banned, law-abiding members of the international community will not have them.[/li][li]Thus the rogue nations will have an advantage over their neighbors who can’t defend themselves.[/li][li]Therefore nuclear weapons should not be banned.[/ul]\*\*[/li][/QUOTE] Sounds like every Tom Clancy book since “Sum of All Fears”. He seems to be hung up on the “Damn, we could win this war really easily if the tree-huggers didn’t make us get rid of all the nukes!” ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/28 "2003-02-16T22:46:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RSC0318 \* > **- why not let everyone have weapons (WMD’s) one good example: jihad…Mujadeen. Holy warriors- people who have alrady taken their last rights. What about suicicde bombers with a nuke strapped to their chest.** Countries that have nuclear weapons (e.g. the U.S.) are not generally in the habit of allowing private citizens to have them. In fact, the **most** despotic governments on the planet – the Iraqs, the North Koreas, the other ones the U.S. most wants **not** to develop nuclear capability – would almost **certainly** forbid their citizens from posessing nuclear weapons, for fear that those private citizens most antithetical to their regimes would nuke the current despotic government out of existence. ---
**Author:** ![prisoner6655321](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f8ce5/32.png) [@prisoner6655321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prisoner6655321)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/29 "2003-02-16T23:33:13Z")
Does the OP think that people who have a history of violence, people who have killed other people with guns, people who show no remorse for killing those people should be allowed to have guns? I don’t. Saddam Hussein has a history of **USING** weapons of mass destruction. THAT is why he shouldn’t be allowed to have them. HE is likely to use them. And what if everybody has nuclear weapons and Hussein uses his on his own people? And since Hussein also has biological/chemical weapons, shouldn’t EVERY country have them, just for self defense? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2003, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/30 "2003-02-17T05:55:29Z")
I can’t imagine any situation where Saddam would use his one nuke- his only defence in a world that is armed to the teeth- against his own people just for the heck of it. I’m not saying he’s a nice guy, but if your gonna make arguments, at least think about what the words you are using actually mean. ---
**Author:** ![yme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/35a633/32.png) [@yme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yme)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/31 "2003-02-17T19:44:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ChaosGod \* > \*\*Maybe the US should ship 1 bomb to every un-nukalarized country in the world. With a nicely writen users manual of course. \*\* I believe Clinton already did that. ---
**Author:** ![prisoner6655321](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f8ce5/32.png) [@prisoner6655321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prisoner6655321)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185/32 "2003-02-21T07:09:50Z")
Here is a situation where Saddam would use his nuclear weapons. He invades Kuwait again. We go back and try to free Kuwait again. He uses the nuke to protect himself, or to turn the tides of the conflict. Sure we might likely nuke him back. But his thoughts might be that we Americans are too weak to kill innocent civilians (again) with nukes, especially in retaliation. After all, Osama Bin Laden didn’t think that we would strike him back the way we did. The bomb gives Saddam the power (or the percieved power in his own eyes) of invulnerability. The bomb levels the playing field but only for those nations who recognize the negatives of using it. It only works on countries who are afraid of a nuclear strike. Saddam doesn’t fear the bomb. We do. He doesn’t love his people. WE love his people more than he does. He doesn’t care if they die for him. We do. It’s not that he would use his own weapons agains his own people. It’s that he doesn’t care that his enemies might use nuclear weapons agains his own people. The only thing that MIGHT make any nation use a nuke against Iraq would be in counterstrike. But he doesn’t care about that. At least that is the impression most of us have of him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-countries-should-have-nuclear-weapons/155185.md?page=1)