The premise of the book / short story I read at least 40 years ago was
that society had reached a "balance of power" by allowing everyone to
carry guns and use them at will.  Since every first class citizen was
"packing," there were little or no shootings since no one wanted to
get shot.  There was a special "neutral" class of citizen who went
unarmed and unmolested, rather like Swiss neutrals.  Does anyone
remember the name of this book / short story and who was the author? 
Thanks.  DW

---

Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 21 Sep 2006 10:25 PDT

I believe you are remembering "Beyond This Horizon," by Robert A.
Heinlein. The famous quote "An armed society is a polite society"
comes from this novel. In "Beyond This Horizon," nearly everyone is
armed. Those who do not carry guns wear an emblem called a "peace
brassard" to indicate their weaponlessness.

There is a brief synopsis here:

http://www.gotterdammerung.org/books/robert-heinlein/beyond-this-horizon.html

Is this your book?

---

Clarification of Question by tiger6322-ga on 22 Sep 2006 06:06 PDT

"Beyond This Horizon" certainly sounds like the same story.  I will
try to obtain a copy and see if it is the premise I remember.  Thank
you very much for responding so quickly.  You're terrific!  -- DW

---

Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 22 Sep 2006 11:02 PDT

If you should decide that "Beyond the Horizon" is the correct book,
please let me know, so that I may post it as your answer and collect
the fee.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 22 Sep 2006 11:03 PDT

Oops. In my remark above, I meant to say "Beyond This Horizon," not
"Beyond the Horizon."

Pink, you've got it correct. Great book, and it has an error common to
the time it was written-- they listed the human chromosome count as
48!

Actually the Swiss are incredibly heavily armed.

At a guess I would put them on par with the Israelis
- but on a more personal level
- kind of explained by what we don't know about WWII