One of the reasons I often see used for why the concealed handgun licenses are good public policy is that they will lower violent crime because criminals will be less likely to committ a crime against someone if they think that the person might be armed. I have also seen statistics that show that violent crime has gone down in places that have enacted gun carrying licenses and that crimes have gun up in places that have enacted tougher gun control policies.
Couldn’t the same type of reasoning be used to show that nations would be less likely to commit international crimes against others if the other nation has nuclear weapons technology.
I recently heard an argument that was basically calling the US administration hypocritical because the have supported gun ownership rights but have tried to restrict countries from developing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.
Is this hypocrytical? I personally don’t think so, but I wasn’t sure why not.
FWIW I actually do support individual’s right to own firearms and also support disarment of rogue nations.
In Bowling For Columbine, Mike Moore asked Terry Nichols’ brother if he thought it was his right to have weapons-grade plutonium if he wanted to, since that was “arms”. Nichols said no.
I think it’s not a good analogy because a gun can kill a couple dozen people (obviously way more or way less depending on if it’s a handgun or an assault rifle). A nuclear weapon can kill millions of people, and its effects last long after its detonation.
Isn’t there an official difference between things designed to kill individual people (rifles, pistols, etc.) versus things designed to kill groups of people (claymore mines, tank shells, etc.)?
Something like this reasoning was the basis of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) policy.
Of course, the best of all possible worlds is that the good guys are armed and the bad guys are disarmed. We’re the good guy; Iraq, North Korea, and Iran are the bad guys.
I don’t think so. The US has had nukes since the day they were invented. Aside from using them on Japan have we ever used them because someone attacked us? Plenty of attacks have occurred since then. Korea, Vietnam, embassy bombings, World Trade Center bombings, 9/11, etc.
You simply do NOT use nukes to discourage random attacks…even big ones. Even in wars where tens of thousands of soldiers are dying. They are there as the final measure. If you have nukes and your country is about to be overrun and utterly lost THEN you think about rolling out the nukes.
Nukes are scary enough in stable countries hands. If you equate letting a country have nukes to gun control then you need to do it this way:
If any country can and should be allowed to have nukes then ANY person should be allowed to have guns including Charles Manson and any other proven psycho you care to name. Saddam Hussein is a PROVEN sociopath. The guy is flat out evil. Letting him have nukes is a BAD IDEA[sup]tm[/sup].
Well, we have a 7 day waiting period before you can get a gun. Since a nuclear bomb is a million times more powerful, I would agree that Iraq can have nuclear bombs in about 7 million years after application.
…and I am not kidding.
The 7 day waiting perion (2 weeks in some states) is also used to determine if the purchaser has a criminal record. I would say that pretty much disqualifies Iraq, Iran and israel.
I’d bet money Israel already has one (or more). No I can’t prove it and it is very un-GD of me but nevertheless I think if any ‘small’ country could pull off getting one it’d be the Israelis.
The last intelligent estimate in 1996 was that Israel has 6 to 8 nukes based on their reactors ability and refinement (in secrecy). But you see thats the thing tho. They dont go waving that information about with stupid hard sales calls of nuclear parts. The UN cant even decide to investigate israel due to lack of evidence. Probably the first conclusive proof we would get is when they drop one on saddams head.
This is a discussion I’ve heard a few times in libertarian circles I’ve been in, since it is a question that tends to come up.
The distinction I’ve heard made is that an explosive poses an ‘active’ threat to everyone around it within its blast range, the equivalent of pointing a loaded firearm at someone and can be restricted for the same reasons.
I might be forgetting an element of the distinction, but that is essentially the argument I’ve heard. I must admit that I never found it completely convincing (but then again I also figured that I would be more than happy to live in a libertarian world in which that one right was infringed upon).
More directly on the OP, sqweels hit it on the head. We don’t let criminals have guns, so it is not hypocritical of us to not allow criminal states to have guns. Were we to threaten to invade and destroy Iceland if it announced its intentions of desiring nuclear weapons, that might be a little different.
That attitude appears to be shifting. Todays Washington Post details a survey in which 6 of 10 americans favor a nuclear response if Saddam hits our troops too hard. If our barrier to going nuclear is this low, what standards could we expect more inexperienced nations, or their leaders, to apply ? 1 nuke = 2 divisons ?