In my consideration of it, the right to bear arms is the right to self determination. Nevertheless, as a sovereign nation, Australia may do as it pleases to Australians, but talking firearms here on this list is almost surely a rathole unless one wants to argue that cyber weapons are a parallel vector; perhaps this selection in forward time order will illustrate: A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies. -- George Washington, 8 January 1790 I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle. -- Sitting Bull, 19 July 1881 Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. -- Mao Zedong, August 1927 If the opposition disarms, all is well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves. -- Joseph Stalin, 7 December 1927 Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pg 446, 1928 That rifle on the wall of the laborer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. -- George Orwell, in the English democratic socialist weekly "Tribune," 1940 Even if, for you, the right to bear arms is not the right to self determination, what has changed is that the kinetic weapons of the civilian are no longer even remotely capable of challenging the kinetic weapons of the powers that be, so it is quite remarkable and, some might say, fortuitous that cyber weapons have brought us back to a balance of power some two hundred years old. What we might want, therefore, is to discuss whether we can prevent the overwhelming mismatch in kinetic weapons (between citizen and the powers that be) that now obtains from being recapitulated in cyber weapons. I, for one, favor arms control of big shit, not little, which puts me at odds with all sovereigns and, quite possibly, the arc of history. --dan