6 May 2013 - a polite society

Yesterday’s Whale is secretly not about political attention span alone but also, as some will have noticed, gun control. Switzerland has a conscript army, and when a soldier finishes his tour of duty he takes his rifle home with him and keeps it there as part of the national defense. That may be the example people have in mind when they say that an armed society is a polite society. But wander into southwest Philadelphia and you’ll find yourself in an armed society that can be dangerously rude. A polite society is the kind that can afford to be armed.