Quote:
Originally Posted by 92bDad
For every ONE nutjob who creates hell for Gun Owners, we could all list off 1000's of examples of Responsible Gun Owners.
This is the left using fear tactics to manipulate perceptions.
It's the WMD's of the Left...
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Let's better not turn this into a left vs. right debate for no good reason. I know it's increasingly popular in political and social debates to immediately categorize someone's opinion, deem it "left" or "right" and ignore its potential reasonableness in the process. Finding the "objectively correct side of the argument", as alexamenos is confident in doing, is next to impossible while wearing the blinders of a particular political movement or ideology, whether left-wing or right-wing. It's quite frustrating to see so many people unable to approach a matter without bias of any kind--almost as if they were politicians themselves (like those they then go on to criticize...)
It's already been established that responsible gun owners aren't the problem. Only because some mentally challenged kid from Arizona goes nuts doesn't mean that responsible citizens have to be or should be affected by it.
You may call it "perception" that's based on "fear tactics to manipulate" people. Yet the numbers suggest that the firearm-related death rate in the United States is significantly higher than in any other comparable country. That's more like a fact, not manipulated perception.
Is it impossible or just undesirable to allow responsible citizens to have guns while making it more difficult for nutjobs and/or criminals to obtain them as well? And is the
unconditional right (not the right itself) to possess a gun important enough to allow criminals to easily exploit that very right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dalmations202
Right at 1/2 of 1% of the deaths in the US in 2007 was caused by Firearm homicide. I don't think you can add in the firearm suicide because suicide is suicide and they would do it with something else regardless of the laws. Also, not sure how many less of the 12,646 death in homicides there would be, even if there were no such things as guns.
Cars on the other hand cause ~ 4 times more deaths in the US - and yet elderly, drunk, drugged, mentally ill, minors, etc all drive -- even though there are some laws against it.
WHERE IS ALL THE OUTRAGE? I mean when 4 times more people every year are killed on the roads, WHY AREN'T WE MAKING MORE LAWS AGAINST driving? WHY aren't we eliminating the ability to drive? Why isn't driving the major factor we are up in arms about? Shouldn't we do backgroud checks before a car is sold? How about one each time you fuel up, and no more than 100 gallons at a time being sold? Shouldn't we have the government invent a system for car traffic control like they have for air traffic where they can automate the movement in and around major metropolitan areas?
ANSWER Hipocrisy..................
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I've never really understood that line of thinking. Just because a problem is less frequent, does it mean it's not worthy of acknowledging it or even finding a solution to it? Couldn't we then also get rid of traffic controls targeting drivers who are under the influence, given that relatively few people die because of car accidents as compared to, say, cancer or even diabetes? What about legalizing drugs? Given that far less people die of a drug overdose or at the hands of a drug addict than a heart attack, maybe drugs aren't much of a problem either in the big picture. And does it really make sense to spend billions of dollars to prevent terrorist attacks, given that the number of people falling victim to such attacks in the Western civilization each year is pretty close to zero?
Bernados mentioned that "gun ownership should come with training and evaluation similar to getting a driver's license". I agree, and that may be all that's needed to have a shot at reducing the problem. There's no way to completely eliminate it. Instead, it would be all about finding ways to make the problem less likely to occur, as Bernados mentioned as well.
Cars serve an important purpose, so we cannot get rid of them to avoid fatal accidents. We can only try to reduce risks; that's why there are speed limits, traffic lights, signs and controls. And of course a driver's license. Assuming that guns serve a purpose as well, why is it difficult to come to terms on a couple of measures to reduce risks stemming from unconditional gun distribution?
Handing a gun to a criminal is like handing car keys to an alcoholic--one way or the other, it's not going to end well...