But I guess his right to own a gun and hunt "responsibly" (why the hell do we just trust that is what people will do?) supersedes her right to life.
This really isn't the soundest argument though.
If we were willing to give up more of our rights (for example, privacy rights, rights against unreasonable search and seizure), there's no doubt we could save lives. But at what cost?
In other words, if the government had unfettered access to your (and everyone's) email and web history, listen without warrant to every call you make, could search your person or home at will, could compel the unlocking of your phone, and could stop you on the street for random search and questioning, we could certainly stop more terrorist incidents and save lives. If the police could indefinitely detain people on even the suspicion of terrorism, we'd stop some terrorist incidents, even if a lot of innocent people were inconvenienced.
Do your privacy rights supersede the right of others to live free of terrorism?
If you could get rid of the second amendment in exchange for giving up the fourth, would you take that bargain, if doing so would save lives?
At some point after 9/11 during the Bush years, a group of Israeli security experts were invited to the US to share their expertise on combating terrorism, given that Israel is a constant target but still manages to keep their instances of terrorism relatively low. Their conclusion? That America could in fact be made much safer, but the Bill of Rights would have to be changed to institute the kind of measures necessary to achieve that safety. Some of their recommendations made it into the Patriot Act, but most were unfeasible given the Constitutional limitations.
Of course, I'm not advocating giving up any of our civil liberties. The cost of a little safety for liberty is a bargain I'm willing to make. It's part of living in a free society. And I frankly think America would be better off if ownership of most guns was illegal. But it's easy for us to be dismissive of rights that aren't personally important to us, but much more difficult to give up those that we hold dear...even to save lives.