No, I brought it up there because arguing civilly isn’t enough to merit a reward – arguing in good faith should be a factor, too. Given your behaviour in other threads I’d assume you’d agree – I know for a fact that you’re well regarded here in both aspects when you disagree with general consensus … except when it comes gun control issues.
You constantly argued that per-capita comparisons between gun violence were beside the point when it came to the statistics, and instead pointed to the different total population sizes as if that somehow obviated the per-capita comparisons. If you look at those threads you’ll see that I was far from the only one to notice that.
I agree with you that poverty is a factor, probably a big one as you describe it. I’d even allow that its exploitation by the NRA via its race-baiting and support of right-wing economic memes feeds into the dysfunctional regulatory atmosphere.
What I don’t do is bend myself into pretzels to try to claim that the sort of strongly enforced gun laws we see in Western Europe and Canada (as opposed to poorly enforced ones in Central America) is so irrelevant as to be taken off the table as a major contributor to the problem in the U.S. I also recognise the comparative killing and wounding power of freely available firearms (esp. those with high mag capacity, ROFs, and extra-lethal ammo) as compared to that of knives, blunt instruments and hands.
I’m not here to rehash this debate outside the public forums on the topic so I’m ending my participation in this thread right here.
