This is a cause invented and promoted by gun manufacturers. It will take a campaign like that for stopping smoking in order for people to realize people with guns usually kill people without guns.
This is a cause invented and promoted by gun manufacturers. It will take a campaign like that for stopping smoking in order for people to realize people with guns usually kill people without guns.
Devil's advocate question: Why does the term "arms" in the amendment need to refer specifically to guns? Wouldn't a strict textual reading of the amendment give me the right (as long as I'm a well-regulated militia) to posses a rocket launcher, landmines, F-22, aircraft carrier, etc? If we're going to ignore the technological advances from muzzle-loaders to AR-15s, why not apply the same rationale to all arms?
I agree. Or even nuclear arms? The point is that what we have is a law written for a different time period. What if it had been written much earlier and had read, every man has a right to wear a sword?
It's certainly true that most people killed by guns did not themselves have guns, at the time. It does not follow that *having* a gun makes you *less* likely to be killed, when a shooting situation occurs. There are a few cases of successful "return fire," to be sure. Once in a while, a civilian just carrying his gun while out in the community *is* the hero, but that's not the same thing as being safer for having the gun. In the chaos of an unplanned public gunfight among amateurs, sometimes the armed civilian just makes himself the priority target, to the original shooter, or to other would-be heroes, or to arriving police. Sometimes he adds to the carnage, shooting the wrong people.
No question. I was just doing the devil's advocate thing of pointing out how readily the other side of the debate would snatch up such a line. As you point out, the reality is much more complicated.
This is a cause invented and promoted by gun manufacturers. It will take a campaign like that for stopping smoking in order for people to realize people with guns usually kill people without guns.
Devil's advocate question: Why does the term "arms" in the amendment need to refer specifically to guns? Wouldn't a strict textual reading of the amendment give me the right (as long as I'm a well-regulated militia) to posses a rocket launcher, landmines, F-22, aircraft carrier, etc? If we're going to ignore the technological advances from muzzle-loaders to AR-15s, why not apply the same rationale to all arms?
I agree. Or even nuclear arms? The point is that what we have is a law written for a different time period. What if it had been written much earlier and had read, every man has a right to wear a sword?
"people to realize people with guns usually kill people without guns."
Plenty of gun owners would tell you that they realize this quite well.
It's certainly true that most people killed by guns did not themselves have guns, at the time. It does not follow that *having* a gun makes you *less* likely to be killed, when a shooting situation occurs. There are a few cases of successful "return fire," to be sure. Once in a while, a civilian just carrying his gun while out in the community *is* the hero, but that's not the same thing as being safer for having the gun. In the chaos of an unplanned public gunfight among amateurs, sometimes the armed civilian just makes himself the priority target, to the original shooter, or to other would-be heroes, or to arriving police. Sometimes he adds to the carnage, shooting the wrong people.
No question. I was just doing the devil's advocate thing of pointing out how readily the other side of the debate would snatch up such a line. As you point out, the reality is much more complicated.
Or people with guns kill themselves, and men accomplish it at an alarming rate.
That's true too; I forgot to mention that piece of it. Thank you for doing it.