this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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I hate the argument people make sometimes, "Anything can be a weapon, I could go around stabbing people with a pencil if I really wanted to. Even if you banned guns, it wouldn't matter." Yeah, except you can't kill dozens of people within a few minutes with a pencil. We've got huge problems with economic disparity, a quiet epidemic of mental health disorders with little means to help the people that need it, coupled with ridiculously easy access to high-powered firearms in our country. There will never be enough "good people with guns" to protect the world. We need to reduce access to gun ownership to prevent mentally unbalanced people from having such powerful weapons at their disposal for when they eventually snap (since they'll never have access to treatment), but that's just a pipe dream at this point in time in America.
I had believed in the good guy with a gun idea until a citizen trying to stop a shooter by shooting back got himself shot by the police. Then I imagined myself in the position of the police in that scenario. It's not neat and tidy. It gets worse as I imagine more people getting involved with their own firearms.
In a small space where everyone can see everyone, the aggressor is clear. I think of the guy who tried to rob a gun store. Everyone there hears what he said and sees how he's acting. As soon as someone walks in without seeing the situation unfold, it becomes messy really fast.
"Any is too many" - obviously we don't want anyone murdered, but good luck doing anything to completely stop that. People kill for any number of reasons, it's happened since the beginning of time. Someone says something under his breath and gets killed waiting in a fast food line by somebody they've never met before. A jealous ex-lover shows up at a party and stabs their ex to death. A calculating spouse poisons their SO to collect insurance money. A soldier sees someone wearing the enemy uniform and shoots. Someone goes off the deep end and shoots up a music festival and kills 58 people in a matter of minutes. A troubled teen goes into a school and kills dozens of kindergarteners in their classrooms. All those are tragedies and seemingly daily occurrences, but the low-hanging fruit here is quantity. Saving more people in less amount of time is better. Utopia can wait, people need helped now.
One of the problems with arguments made by gun control opponents is that they concoct these ridiculous all-or-nothing scenarios. Like, we obviously can't enact any sort of solution unless it's a Magic Bullet that universally solves every problem ever that humanity has ever faced. If a solution doesn't solve world hunger, prevent accidental overdoses, car accidents, acid showers, lightning strikes, or cure cancer, then obviously it's doomed to failure.
Or even attempting to do ANYTHING at all about the problem is just the first step in jack-booted Government thugs kicking down you front door, dragging your grandmother out, raping her in the street and then shooting your kids and your dogs... for reasons. OR, we can't talk about gun control solutions because obviously we'll start illegalizing knives, acid (?), and cars next, just like they've done in all the countries of the world that have gun control, like those hellholes in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Canada. OR, if anybody anywhere dies from a shooting after enacting gun control legislation, then obviously it was a failure and a waste of time, why did we even bother?