first, you're cartooning the other side of the discussion. just as you did with the "puppies" quote fabrication and with the "tens of thousands of murders every day" quote fabrication, you've created a straw man necessary for your hyperbolic language to have any sort of credibility. i have not said "BAN GUNS BAN GUNS," nor has anyone else in here. what people have argued for is gun control, and what i have asked for, specifically, is an admission that the right to bear arms is why there are at least 10,000 murders by handguns in the US every year, and that you feel as if your "right" to bear arms is worth this price.
you've said that it is. thank you. i appreciate the admission.
let's look at the second part of your argument:
now, let's look at what the link actually says, and we'll just take California, the most populated state:
so you can already see that handguns are responsible for more than 2/3rds of all homicides in California. 2/3rds! do you think that those 1,605 murders would have happened without a handgun? a proportion would have, absolutely, but this underscores the point of gun control -- it's not that the gun itself murders someone else, it's that guns make it very, very, very easy for people to murder other people. and many murders would not have happened at all had there not been a gun present and easily available.
Americans are no more violent than any other Western country, but the reason why our homicide rate is so astronomical compared to the UK or France is because it is so, so easy to get guns in this country. and the reason why it is so easy to get guns in this country is because people like you think that it's your right to own guns at all costs.
and, Constitutionally, that is likely correct. i agree, and i have agreed -- it does seem to be a part of the Constitution. and i know why. i do know that the British crown was violently removed from the Colonies. i also know that there are gun owners who are responsible, there are guns that do prevent crimes, there are people who need guns to defend themselves from bears.
but the fact remains that guns themselves present a significant and clear threat to public health. the constitution is modified all the time. there is no absolute free speech -- the proverbial "can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater" -- and that the right to "bear arms" begs to be likewise moderated and controlled because we have clear evidence that guns make us less safe, that guns make it easy to kill other people, and that guns themselves often kill children who mishandle them. and this is distinct from, say, a motor vehicle, which kills many more people each year, because of the fact that many Americans are entirely dependent upon motor vehicles, cars themselves are highly regulated, driving itself is highly regulated, roads are highly regulated, everyone who drives is trained and licensed, and the car has a purpose far above and beyond being a weapon.
guns are a unique commodity, and uniquely deadly.
no, but ive said time and time again that i am all for making controls that make that possible. i've said my ideas before on controls that i think would work, but im not a lawmaker am i?
