Quote:
Originally Posted by detbuch
One final thing, Jim. you said "I feel like I'm talking to people who are trying to defend slavery. That's how hard it is for me to believe that otherwise rational and logical people, can be so...I don't know... extremist? thoughtless? Unsympathetic to the victims? I have very close friends who agree with you and detbuch, these are guys of high intelligence and very solid moral character. I just can't fathom their position on this issue."
I can fathom your position on this issue. But it seems absurd, to me. Being sympathetic to victims of mass shootings to the point of demanding some, yet undefined law to add to or replace those that have not prevented the tragedies with which you sympathise, yet not demanding more laws that are supposed to diminish hand gun deaths which vastly outnumber semi-automatic gun deaths just because more are killed at once with the latter.
It seems just a trifle cold-blooded to not get worked up to the point of demanding more gun control of handguns just because only one or two are killed at a time.
And it seems illogical to me that you would not think that the end game is to ban hand guns as well. It has even been stated by leftists that that's the goal. And that every gun control restriction that can be imposed on the law-abiding gun owners is one step further toward the goal. And that the immediate and vociferous calls for more control after every mass shooting is meant to ultimately create an emotional environment in which the majority of the people will finally give in to the leftists ultimate demands.
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"not demanding more laws that are supposed to diminish hand gun deaths "
Of course I recognize that many more Americans are killed in garden-variety gun crime, where handguns are used. I am a huge advocate of discussing any and all policies which might serve to help this plague. But this is a very different problem than the rare (not rare enough) mass shootings. I for one, think it's possible to want to talk about solutions for mass shootings,
and to support policies that reduce 'normal' handgun crime, at the same time. It's not one or the other. Caring about one issue, does not preclude me from caring about the other.,
"It seems just a trifle cold-blooded to not get worked up to the point of demanding more gun control of handguns just because only one or two are killed at a time."
Again, wanting to make it harder for mass shootings to occur, doesn't mean I'm not concerned (even more concerned) about handgun crime. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
"illogical to me that you would not think that the end game is to ban hand guns as well."
Maybe that's some people's end game, but I don't think it's many people's end game. The other extreme, is that there are zero restrictions, in which case you'd be more comfortable if George Soros could buy a nuke on Amazon.
OK. So here are your arguments (not just you arguments, but what everyone on your side, is saying) against any proposals that are designed to make it harder to carry out mass shootings:
(1) I need my bump stocks and high capacity magazines in case the US military wages war against me (because that will allow me to stand up to Delta Force soldiers and Seal Team 6)
(2) if we ban things like bump stocks and high capacity magazines, that's not a 100% guarantee that there will be zero mass shootings in the future, so unless the law is 100% perfect, it's not worth pursuing. Because unless you can save all lives, saving "some" lives is not a worthy goal.
(3) if you take away things like bump stocks and magazines, we are irrevocably down the slippery slope whereby the feds will take my handgun and put me in a concentration camp. It's not possible to ban some things, without going to the extreme of banning everything. Moderation is not possible.
(4) it's inappropriate to try and prevent mass shootings, because there are bigger problems in the world right now, and talking about addressing mass shootings, necessarily means that you don't care about people who die in other ways.
I was talking about this issue with some conservative friends of mine last night, all of them regurgitating slight variations of one of the above arguments. There is no talking to my friends on this subject, they just put their fingers in their ears and refuse to listen. It's like talking to Sandra Fluke about abortion.