Kuku steps out of his home, into his car and is driven to his podium...  He begins to speak..

FRIENDS, I have had a few days off, I listened, thought and reflected, instead of spoke.  It was a positive experience, and one that I intend to repeat.

But it got me thinking.  It seems that the generations of mobster to which we belong have ample opportunity to train their guns.  Everybody, from CLs down, spends much of each days target practising, maintaining their weapons, practising for the day that they might have to use it.

What I'm wondering, my friends, is if a consequence of having so many well trained gunmen is war?  

Does practising using a gun make it more likely that war will happen?

Now, given the nature of power and money, war is always gonna happen in this thing of ours.  But I'm wondering if well trained guns speeds that process up?

Sean had been pondering the Commissar's question for a while, mainly to see if his thoughts would be echoed by others, but alas, it appeared he would have to throw something out there...

I often think that one of the problems with this thing of ours is that people learn to shoot before they even learn to talk these days.  I'm not sure if that's down to the way their ancestors raised them or the welcome they get into this world.  By this I mean that all too often you see people voicing their thoughts and being immediately shot down by some of the more articulate members of society.

To answer the question, while I believe it's essential for every man, woman and raccoon to be able to defend both themselves and their Family, it probably has heightened the likelihood of more wars occurring.  People seem to be of the opinion that it's easier to shoot first and ask questions later.  Also, seeing others frequently training their guns probably heightens an already high sense of paranoia among some people.

Chuckster had been working on his shot since he had learned how to bounce a ball.  It was now a thing of beauty, well as much of a thing of beauty as one of those broken artifacts now found in museums.  Nevertheless, shooting was certainly something he could heavily weigh in on.  It took a while for him to realise that CommissarKuku and SeanCallan were maybe on about something else.  Nothing ventured nothing gained, you don't get the reputation for being an opinionated jackass if you shied away from tough topics...

Well, you know.  When you're old you have the benefit of a lot of hindsight, fractured memories and rose-tinted recollections.  Back in the day it was certainly harder to find targets but equally, the levels of defence possibly make getting a good gun quickly less of a thing.  In my (rarely) humble opinion, I think it is the availability of data that drives the speed of wars.

But are wars really more frequent, or does it just feel like it because we've just had a couple?