Hell, look what they did to the makers of Bucky Balls.
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That is a moral judgement and it depends on your moral system. You believe an object is immoral because it was designed to kill deer? Fine, but donât pretend that your moral system is more logical than one which thinks that human body counts matter more than intentions. For that matter alcohol is manufactured with the certain knowledge that people will die as a result of consuming it. You are drawing a very fine moral line here. You donât have to defend it to me, but you should be aware that there are other moral systems that are no less valid than yours.
The sentiment youâre attacking is, âThe only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.â That sentiment doesnât apply here because toddlers mishandling loaded weapons left within their grasp are not âbad guys.â Shooting them to stop them from shooting someone else is not the solution.
Hereâs a brilliant plan: Donât leave loaded firearms where toddlers can get to them!
And how do you make that happen?
Laws insisting firearms are locked up? Media campaigns instilling that idea in the owners.
A little media propaganda suggesting guys who leave their guns unattended have small weiners. Stuff like that.
The intent of an objectâs manufacture and design doesnât make it more deadly. (Does it? Why?) It does make them more scary, which I really think is the underlying point of this argument of intent. Thatâs not really a rational talking point.
Now, gun deaths per capita (accidental, suicides, homicides) are pretty comparable to traffic deaths. So yes, we should take action based on that number alone.
The numbers do tell us, btw, that the issue most deserving of our attention is gun-related suicide:
Of course, every state has its own story of gun violenceâsome are disproportionately effected by homicide, and some suicide.
If you ask me (which you didnât), if we must ban guns, letâs ban handguns. Private ownership and recreation will be impacted least by this, and we take out the most problematic class (by far) of firearm for suicides, homicides and accidents.
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Thereâs a better example than that: swimming pools. About 100 times more toddlers drown in private swimming pools than are accidentally shot, but no one talks about banning swimming pools.
Some municipalities have laws requiring things like locked fences around pools, but no one pretends that these laws will prevent all swimming pool drownings. If such laws were written the way âgun controlâ advocates wish we treated guns, the open space above the fence line would be considered âinsecure,â and expose you to federal felony charges.
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There already are such laws. Federal law requires that guns be locked up when transported by commercial airlines, and that they be in the cargo hold, not the passenger cabin. Many states require that a gun be locked up while being transported in a private car. Many municipalities require that guns to be locked up even within oneâs private home. (âHey, Mr. Housebreaker, give me a second while I unlock my gun safe. Now, letâs see, was it 42 left and past zero, orâŚâ)
If you donât live in one of those municipalities, and you have children in the house who are too young to have been trained in safe firearms handling, you should either not have loaded guns in the house, or they should be under the direct control of someone competent to look after them.
The test I like to use is, if a criminal could get to the gun in a fight before I can, I did not actually have control of it. Thatâs my kind of gun control.
Another counterexample is the mother who was killed when her toddler grabbed her gun from her purse in a supermarket. She failed this test. She left that gun in her purse, in the cart, with the toddler; she abandoned control of a loaded handgun.
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California does in fact have safe gun storage laws.
I cannot speak to how effective those laws are.
Snip:
In California, a person commits criminal storage of a firearm (in the third degree) by keeping or leaving a loaded firearm in a place where the defendant knows (or should have known) that a child under the age of 18 is likely to gain access to the gun without permission of the childâs parent or guardian, and the defendant does not take reasonable steps to secure the firearm. (Cal. Pen. Code, § 25105.)
For example, a person who keeps a loaded handgun in an unlocked drawer of a nightstand and regularly entertains children at home and allows them free access to the bedrooms, including the master bedroom, could be charged with criminal storage. However, if the person locks the nightstand drawer, locks the bedroom drawer, or keeps the gun in a locked safe, then the defendant has likely taken reasonable steps to secure the gun and would probably not be charged with third degree criminal storage of a firearm even if a child found the gun.
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Well - what restrictions, specifically - do you think we need that will reduce irresponsibility. Realistically, not in a âfeel good because we did somethingâ way.
Licensing? I am not 100% against it, but I donât think it would do ANYTHING. First off, in general you have to get licenses to use gun in public. Hunters require going through a test and licenses. Conceal carry requires a test and license. But most people use guns in private. They store it at home and shoot at private land/ranges. Furthermore, I donât think making someone pass a basic test will DO much to prevent accidents. I am on the road every day and see people who supposedly to basic test and still canât drive.
If the main and only purpose of guns is killing things - why arenât there a lot more dead people? Do you feel the same way about swords? I am really, really tired of that argument. Yes some are used for hunting. Some are even used for defense. A vast majority are used for shooting sports or informal target shooting. Do you honestly think most people buy a gun wanting to shoot other people. Do you think that of me? (Hot Tip, I didnât see the baby in the image posted earlier today.) Despite their original purpose, most guns never hurt a soul in their life.
The only time non-gun owners ever see guns used is when they are killing things. But that is the complete fantasy world compared to how a vast majority of them are actually used.
As to my original examples - they arenât red herrings. If one is wanting to crack down on something owned by tens of millions of Americans because a tiny fraction use them to hurt people, shouldnât you also want to crack down on people misusing other things? Sure, cars arenât MADE for killing, and rarely used to do so intentionally, but they potential is there. And the reality is people hurt one another and themselves through 100% avoidable accidents caused by negligence and abuse of alcohol. And they hurt a lot more people accidentally than guns.
And the roots of your kitchen knife you use to cut those yummy heirloom tomatoes is the stone tools our ancestors used to kill and harvest animals and hurt each other.
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I donât spend my time studying suicide, but as I understand it, suicide is a means-independent action. That is, people who are willing to take their own life choose the method most readily available to them. There is roughly one firearm per US citizen, so naturally that will be a popular option here.
The counterargument to that usually goes that the other options are less deadly, so we might have a chance to save the people who have failed at suicide. Thatâs a Nerf Everything argument. We should therefore have no multi-story buildings. Rope longer than a few feet should require special licenses and waiting periods. Non-electric cars should be banned and the electric ones limited to 15 mph. Governmentâs job is to save people from themselves, right?
Instead of making it harder for people to kill themselves, how about we build a society where fewer people want to kill themselves? That works out better for the rest of us, too.
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Tell that to 9 million Syrian refugees dude.
While you and I maybe responsible gun owners, the vast majority of violence in our world IS dispensed from the barrel of a gun. Itâs one of the most well known and desired tools on the planet for a reason. Ease of use and perceived personal power are likely the most motivating factor in their proliferation.
I donât pretend to be enlightened enough to solve this social issue, but letâs not pretend that guns dont kill. Thatâs the only reason mankind invented them in the first place, to kill faster and from longer range.
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Are you really arguing that driving tests serve no purpose? I donât think I can take that seriously.
When I carried, I had a permit from the state. There are still plenty of dumbasses legally carrying guns, but itâs better than nothing, surely?
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This is exactly why itâs so difficult to talk a gun fanatic down. They watch the news on Fox and they know very well what people get at the end of a gun.
Telling them that our country has a standing military so theyâre not needed will just get you wrinkled eyebrows.
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I donât consider guns to be immoral by design per se. Guns and other weapons of war were effective in what I would consider a morally just war effort against the Axis powers in WW2.
But when it comes to considering reducing the amount of something that is harmful to humans or reducing the possibility that it is harmful to humans, the purpose of its manufacture should certainly carry some weight in such decisions. I was arguing against the slippery slope argument that if weâre wanting to ban guns, we should ban other things that arenât intentionally manufactured to kill.
Iâm saying that there are relatively small numbers of accidents vs the total number of gun owners, that no, I donât think we need general licensing. I am fine with the various state licensing with CCW and hunting that the states have (though they vary).
My point is general licensing wonât probably do much to reduce the overall number of accidents. I am not saying that we should do away with car licensing - only that clearly having a license doesnât always insure competency
Give me a break.
It isnât black and white. Guns are weapons that are also used for other things. If you were in a civil war you might want a gun too. I live in a peaceful(ish) democracy and enjoy using it for other things and have no intention to hurt anyone ever.
Swords are weapons. Soul purpose right? Except for people who are into martial arts or fencing sports, right?
So are knives. What is the difference? There is none. You are familiar with knives and use them so you lack any fear of them. What is to stop someone from turning around and stabbing you? Not a damn thing, except most people donât hurt others for no reason. If there were no guns around people wishing to hurt others will do so with knives or clubs - which is what they do in prison and why the UK is making non-stabby kitchen knives and running anti-knife campaigns. I guess it is a less efficient weapon, but it didnât stop the violence.
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A fair point, seeing as swimming pools are expressly designed to kill toddlers in the most efficient way possible.
Why, just last week I went shopping for pools but couldnât decide between a Teflon-coated swimming pool, a hollow-tipped swimming pool or a depleted uranium swimming pool.
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No, but when someone has shown a history of bad driving, we can pull their license and prosecute them for driving without one.
There is no analogue with guns. (Other than indirect solutions like Felon status. Which is a whole new can of wormsâŚ)
Iâm a firearm owner and that seems like a problem to me.
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Yay! Straw men!
I am not suggesting to Nerf Everything. Shame on you for using logical fallacy.
That much is clear, because it isnât exactly means-independant, and itâs not exactly means-dependant. The rate of attempted suicides goes down when the most effective means is not available, but by no means disappears.
I am going to completely ignore the second paragraph, because it is junk, as I mentioned.
Addressing mental health is a great idea, and one that we should consider, because suicide is a large problem in our society that doesnât get enough attention.
The suggestion of banning handguns was directed at the pro-gun ban folksâitâs a sensible, quick and dirty, but ultimately statistically grounded legislative action that accomplishes their goal with the smallest amount of collateral damage to private gun owners. Long guns are still useful for hunting and home defense, and non-lethal weapons are available for conceal-carry advocates.
Do I think we need to ban handguns to reduce violence? No. There are other ways that I think would be effective and far more politically tenable, but I think you would have trouble demonstrating that it would be ineffective.
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BTW, the US needs better car licensing laws. I think mandatory spanking for not knowing how to merge or pass should be mandatory.
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