I made an interesting observation about morals. I read a German blog from a computer scientist and mentioned this on this blog from time to time already. His blog is interesting not only because he is a computer scientist, but he also is an experienced photographer, makes great travel reports without pics, but with much information on the local people in remote parts of the world, and he also shares stories about his time in the German army. He was there before I was there, so it was mandatory for him too. He has a very sober point of view on military topics. So he also has a very sober point of view on guns, although he doesn’t have any special affinity to them. So I could observe that all people, who were in the army, although involuntarily, are inclined to treat guns like they treat any other item too. Only people, who never were in any army, sometimes develop a big fear of guns and regard them as something immoral. They feel even more moral themselves if they do something against the production, distribution, or ownership of guns. Because it is something, which they don’t know by experience because those people with experience are always on the other side, so I can’t regard this as mentally healthy. Hence the mandatory service in an army seems to have healthy effects. Maybe such a mandatory service is a good idea, although I did always hate this idea. It can of course only be a good idea if no conscript risks to be sent to a real mission involuntarily. A mandatory military service should really have the only purpose to develop some understanding for what soldiers are doing.