• AdelleChattre (edited 5 years ago)
    +5
    @kxh -

    how you square that with massive gun ownership!

    You say that as though gun ownership, by itself, is evil. That's a hair-trigger you've got there. Another point of view might be that the reality is that people own guns, for good or ill, and they know perfectly well how they work, what they're for, and how to make them.

    Say you city mice figure out between youse who's going to put the bell on the cat and somehow prohibit them. Maybe a bit like our 18th Amendment that finally ended alcohol once and for all. What do you suppose will happen to the price? To the trade in them? To respect for the law? The poor devils that use these homemade gimcracks? The innocents caught in the crossfire of blackmarket criminal gangs? It wasn't pretty during Prohibition, and alcoholism actually is evil.

    I suppose once it's done, though, on the upside you can roll up your sleeves and get to work on knives, sporks, fire, blunt instruments and the common cold. Meanwhile, every time either of us even mentions 'gun control' the price-to-earnings ratio of Smith and Wesson ratchets another notch.

    You really can't distinguish between owning a weapon and how it might be used?

    It's a matter of being really careful.

    Get back to me when we, as a species, have agreed to limit the rate at which our carbon emissions are still increasing. We'll have valuable tips we can surely use against the transhumans by then. It'll matter more, too.

  • kxh
    +7
    @AdelleChattre -

    and get to work on knives, sporks, fire, blunt instruments and the common cold.

    Tools and weapons are very different. You can't use a gun to eat your dinner or tighten a nut or travel to work. There is one thing a gun is for: to wound or kill.

    our carbon emissions are still increasing

    Sigh!

  • AdelleChattre
    +11
    @kxh -

    There is one thing a gun is for: to wound or kill.

    While that's two things, at the very least you've failed to include deterrence. No biggy. Some of my most comfortable prior assumptions are cozy delusions too.

    • kxh (edited 5 years ago)
      +9
      @AdelleChattre -

      I could have said threaten, wound or kill, I suppose. Why is it that Americans always split hairs about technical aspects of guns? That's not an assault rifle, it's a semi-demi-automatic assault rifle class B.