Oh boy, here we go again. I’ve hurled myself into this argument a dozen times before, so I’m going to just post a link that nobody will read in hopes that someone will be educated.
Yes, it has an obvious agenda, but the information within is up to date and well cited by outside, reliable sources.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at this from a cold, scientific perspective without the “zomg babies dying” aspect.
1. Guns are inanimate mechanical devices. They are neither inherently good or evil and have no moral capacity of their own. I can load, cock, and take the safety off a quality handgun, and leave it on a desk for a thousand years and it will not get up and shoot up an elementary school, blow up in a child’s face, or assassinate any political leaders. It will sit there until a human picks it up and uses it for good or ill. I’m pointing this out because a lot of people who are opposed to guns, in my experience, seem to believe that they have some sort of inherent mind of their own that makes them do terrible, terrible things. A
2. There are a metric shit-ton of guns in the United States, and millions of them didn’t hurt a fly today. Many of the statistics about gun killings in the United States include justified self-defense shootings, suicides, and the deaths that occur when gangs kill each other off. In order to “get rid of all the guns,” what exactly do you plan on doing? Going door to door? Do you really thing Billy the Crip is going to politely hand in his gun when you ask for it? What about John Q. Guncollector, the law abiding citizen? Think about that for a moment. Why should John, who would likely oblige to the will of the law, disarm himself and leave himself vulnerable to Billy, a criminal already, who won’t?
3. Gun control measures typically target the previously mentioned millions of law-abiding gun owners and do nothing or little to prevent gang violence and that sort of thing. Laws that ban guns based on arbitrary cosmetic features like bayonet lugs or barrel shrouds only hurt me and the millions of other responsible gun owners and only serve as a feel-good measure.
4. As I mentioned before, logistically, guns aren’t going anywhere. That said, the world is a dangerous place, and they level the playing field. Bad things happen. There are people out there who will kill you for your TV whether you want to believe it or not. That is a cultural and socioeconomic issue that has yet to be addressed effectively. As previously mentioned, these same people who have no value for your life are probably always going to be armed anyway. Should the law abiding citizen have to learn karate to defend themselves from them? What about the 100 lb woman? Or the elderly man? Or the wheelchair bound? Or the working mom who doesn’t have time to invest in years of martial arts training? Unless you go door to door with guns of your own and confiscate every single gun in the US, the bad guys are always going to be armed. So why should the good, the frail, and the law abiding be denied a monopoly on violence against potential attackers?
5. But Fiddlebastard, guns are only meant for killing!
First of all, no.
Secondly, why does that matter? Like I said, millions of guns didn’t kill anyone today. Instead, they punched holes in paper and clay pigeons, or sat safely in safes, or hung over fireplaces, or sat gathering dust in closets, or brought joy to collectors like me.
Again, why does it matter if they are also capable of being re-purposed constructively? The Jeep, the GPS, nightvision, and thousands of other devices were originally designed with military purposes in mind…. to help people kill more efficiently. Does this mean we should not use them?
6. Ok, Fiddlebastard, well we all know that gun owners are just scared freaks who sit in the dark and stroke their guns and are overcompensating for something! Haha, I told you on that one!
Nice ad hominem/strawman/sweeping generalization/etc. First of all, Freud is pretty much a sham. Secondly, how do you account for millions of female shooters, or people who buy small guns?
7. Alright then, FPCB, what’s your last word here?
Liberty is a hard pill for some to swallow. A free society is often not a safe society, and that is something you just have to deal with. You can’t ban every single thing that is potentially harmful or that you are morally opposed to. History has pretty much proven that it doesn’t work that way.
I live in the country. Everyone out here has a gun. Kids learn to shoot when they are 5 years old and none of them that I know of have ever shot anyone. In fact, hardly anyone gets shot out here at all. Guns are a part of life. We respect them, and treat them with care, and they take care of us. There is no mystery surrounding them because children are educated about them from an early age and they don’t let curiosity get the better of them. This is much different from the city, where many of my fellow Flutherites happen to dwell, where kids get killed all the time in accidents and gang violence. I wonder why that is? Could it be a cultural thing? Could there be something about the poverty, gang culture, and fearful “hands off” attitude of the urban areas that somehow causes guns to be used differently there?
Perhaps education, not prohibition is key. Guns aren’t going anywhere. Instead of talking about them like they are evil monsters in ways that make kids curious about them, how about we all learn about how they function, and their history. Shooting is fun and safe. It doesn’t have to be scary and nobody has to die every time a gun is picked up. Instead of stereotyping gun owners and waxing poetic about an idealistic society free from violence, or proposing ridiculously impractical and liberty-stifling bans, how about we all try and learn something for a change?
Alright… phew… Forgive me if I came off as sarcastic or caustic or anything like that. I’m a tad sick and a bit tired, but my goal here is to educate. I want you to cast aside your preconceptions for a moment and try and really learn something about the so called “gun culture” before making claims about it. As a very active member of said culture, I’m happy to answer any questions you have whether through private message or right here in the open. Please, open your mind and ask me anything you want to know and I’ll try and educate you. Nobody typically does :-(