Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnR
Let's move this conversation to what is important about this Country. What makes this Country (generally) safe, safer than any large country in the world: Freedom
Freedom is the underpinning of our society.
|
Agreed. But another cornerstone of our society, is the belief that your freedom to swing your arms in the air, ends where the tip of my nose begins. It's very clear that the founders never meant for any of the freedoms expressed in the Bill Of Rights, to be limitless.
I would never, ever support a ban on handguns, hunting rifles, or things that can reasonably be argued are for personal self defense. When we start talking about things that bring the killing potential to military-level numbers...I think that's a different conversation.
I concede that any bans are a limitation on freedom, there's no way to deny that. But the pro-gun side is refusing to concede that bans can have any value whatsoever. I don't get that argument. If you want to claim that it's not worth giving up the tools of war to save a few lives, well I disagree with that, but at least it's intellectually honest. To say out loud that bans won't help? I mean, we know that some bans are essentially worthless, especially in reducing garden-variety gun crime in urban areas, where handguns are available everywhere, so it's very easy to acquire the tools to kill a person or two.
Mass-shootings are a completely different problem, requiring a completely different fix. The body count will be very much driven by the tools that are available, which is why the Vegas shooter didn't choose to open fire with the Marlin .22 that my Dad taught me to shoot with. If that was all he had available to him, he could not have possibly shot 600 people. It's not possible.
I'm not saying we ban everything except the Marlin .22. I'm saying, at the very least, we need to be able to say out loud that if certain things were banned, it might make it harder to kill huge numbers of people in a short span of time. But we can't agree on that. So a conversation isn't possible.