 
 
 
       While I wouldn't be too terribly impressed with anybody who got
to be paranoid based on either Usenet in general or Phill Hallam-Baker's
comments in general, you'd be surprised.
 
       For most people, if you accuse them of something long enough and
loud enough, to enough people, they start to ask why they're bothering
to fight it.
 
       If nothing you do will be considered right, why bother to do right?
It's pretty basic human nature.
 
 
       What an amazing thing.  I didn't realize that over a hundred million
gun owners all posted to tpg.
 
       Even if *all* the posts in talk.politics.guns illustrated what
you say they illustrate, it would still only reflect the written
personas (which is often different from face-to-face) of a very, very
small and select group.
 
       Anybody who seriously generalizes any attitudes or positions on
Usenet to the general population of any country either doesn't care
about accuracy or needs to have a few realities explained to them.
 
 
        Speaking of which...
 
      Most of the "readership" posts I've seen put the most read
newsgroups at about 160,000 readers, a number I have a feeling is
fairly inflated.  The posters, rare and regular, are themseleves a
very tiny minority of that group.  And the whole of Usenet readers
are themselves a very distorted sample of humanity.
 
       If anything, the only real thing you can get out of the relative
sample of Usenet readers is that we've got too much equipment and too
much time available to us.
 
 
        Proof that guns don't make you safer is that if you buy one the
government will show up and kill you?
 
        Tell me, if the government took away the voting rights of
everybody who exercised their free speech, would that then be proof
that free speech squelches political activity?
 
        You are equating two things with each other that don't.
 
 
        Phill, if you really believe that the various posts on
computer nets represents *either* most of the poster's in person
personalities *or* the general public's general opinions, then
I have some serious reservations about your grasp on reality.
 
        But don't expect you really do believe that.  It's simply
a convenient way to make your point, and hopefully make those
people you don't like look bad.
 
 
        Have a nice day, Phill.
 