OFF: THEM

[J Strobridge]

WARNING - this is very off topic

M Holmes writes:

> Similarly the tightening of the gun laws aids in State projection of
> power - William Rees Mogg ahs written some very interesting stuff on how
> the ability of a State to get it's own way depends a lot on the balance
> of power in personal weapons technology. Small alterations in that
> balance of power have led to the collapse of empires due to the
> inability of States to project power at the periphery (American
> Revolution and the decline of the British and Roman empires for example)
> and even the complete replacement of political systems (feudalism
> collapsed because people could protect themselves rather than offer
> fealty to a Lord in exchenge for same - and initially crossbows were
> banned in the UK in order to support the Feudal system because crossbow
> bolts could penetrate the armour of tax collecting knights).

Jeeze - I come back to this list after a couple of weeks absence to be
faced with this statement.   ok - Mr. William Rees Mogg may be a highly
respected writer but I'm finding it very, very difficult to agree that
the Roman Empire collapsed because of a "small alteration in that balance
of power".   The Roman Empire disintegrated at its center for various
economic and political reasons while it was still expanding vigorously at
the periphery and in fact one of the problems of the Roman Empire was that
its power base had in effect *moved* to the periphery and that power
base then sought to control what had been the center.   This is no
"small alteration".   Roman Britain in the 4th and 5th centuries was a
a major center of civilisation in its own right until the Emperor of
Britain (admittedly self-styled) took it into his head that he wanted
to be Emperor of Rome as well.

I'm also, to some extent surprised that he's portraying the Feudal
System as solely protective.  Feudalism was imposed from above by Norman
kings who wanted to give their friends ownership of large amounts of
land without the problems of managing it.   The landowner then had to
provide the king with large numbers of his tenants able to serve in
the Royal army which meant he had to look after them to some extent.
Feudalism began to break down not just because people carried suitable
weaponry to threaten the safety of tax collectors but when sufficient
land and markets became available for folk to farm their own property
without having to hold it on behalf of some overall Master.   The Black
Death came closer to achieving this than ANY other historical event and
that includes any period of weapons ownership.

If Mr. Rees Mogg is reducing centuries of social and economic history
to such simplistic statements solely to support gun ownership then I
sincerely hope that people other than me are going to protest about
this one.

jill

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J.D.Strobridge at ed.ac.uk                         eset08 at tattoo.ed.ac.uk
                                                ELIJSA at srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk
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