Originally Posted by Jim in CT
Seat belt laws do not "stop" all vehicle deaths. But they reduce vehicle deaths.
Seat belt law does not ban anything. It does not ban cars nor even superfast, super-powerful cars. It does not remove several ton trucks from the road. It doesn't require background checks. It doesn't restrict your right to own any of those. The greatest potential and actual reduction of vehicle deaths is safe, sane, drivers.
More to the point, seat belt laws have no impact on your ability to defend yourself against tyranny.
A very, very common argument I hear from the gun crowd, goes something like this..."if you enact such-and-such a ban, people can still get guns and kill others". In other words, they seem to be saying that unless a proposed gun law guarantees that there will be zero gun deaths, that there's no sense in enacting any laws.
Jim, I didn't think you would resort to sophistry. Your second sentence is a non-sequitur to the first. Maybe the word "seem" gives you a little connection to both statements, but the connection is so minute that it is shameful to try it.
No law is that perfect. Not one. So should we eliminate all laws?
Laws are required for direction, not perfection. They are necessary BECAUSE we lack perfection. Serious personal imperfections can lead to deaths and chaos. Because of that, most laws restrict personal or collective behaviors. But, in a fundamental, existential matter such as freedom vs subjugation, laws that favor freedom must exist to restrict government. The balance between freedom and subjugation, if there is a balance, must weigh in favor of freedom if freedom is the object. Otherwise, the power to rule is more important than the power to be free from unconsented rule.
Again, your sophistry overflows. Eliminating all laws because none is perfect is begging a question. A question that does not exist.
And, as you say, no law is perfect. There will be those who take advantage of their freedom to deny others of theirs. The only correction to that is to punish those who abuse others of their rights. But every diminishment in favor of the fundamental laws which restrict the rulers, and impose on freedoms to resist tyranny, is a path to that very tyranny.
Some (not all) gun crimes are committed with zero planning, sometimes people just snap in the heat of the moment. Common sense tells me, that in those cases, the less firepower the person (who is no longer completely in control of himself) has at his fingertips, the fewer graves we need to dig.
The brutal truth is that the number of graves does not change. It's when and how or why. Another brutal truth is that if we surrender a bit of freedom at every new moment of tragedy, that will not prevent future tragedies from which you surrender more freedom. It's a one way process. The end of the process, if freedom is your goal, is obvious. And that end is not freedom. Emotion is one of those feelings we have that can raise us to heights of beauty and passion. It also can lead us into destruction.
If your rebuttal is "how would you feel if it was your wife or child or friend that was killed?" I am certain, at this long road of coming to know myself, that I would not be selfish enough, hopeless enough, to strip one more layer of my fellow, want to say men but that convenient metaphor has been stripped from us, so I'll say the more awkward, of my fellow people's ability to resist dictatorial government.
Some (not all) gun crimes are carried out by the mentally disturbed. Not all of these people have the ability to circumvent gun laws and either buy things on the black market, or manufacture it themselves.
No law is ever going to be perfect. That doesn't mean laws don't add value.
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