You're certainly entitled to your opinion.
Actually, it isn't that I'm " wrong " - anymore more than you're " wrong " on this issue. We simply don't share the same opinion on this aspect / slogan of the gun debate....fair enough.
Nope. It's that you're objectively wrong. To the extent that I believe in an "objective wrong", which honestly isn't very far, I'll give you that.
You set the metric by which correctness is evaluated: sound reasoning, and yours is lacking. In that context, you are "wrong". Knowledge is, after all, contextual.
And, as far as " until guns have minds of their own " as it pertains to the " guns don't kill people - people kill people " bromide, I'll acknowledge that this type of slogan does represent an equivocation of sorts. Nonetheless, I think it's the ambiguity inherent in the meaning of a word " kill " that still allows my argument to be valid. In other words, a focus more on the ability of a gun as an object to " kill " and less on the intent of a human to " kill " still makes for a valid argument.
That's an interesting distinction, but still the same failing logic. Any object possesses lethal potentiality. Do you want to ban them all? I mean, I could kill you with a shoe if I wanted to (or I guess you would call it the shoe killing you). Do you want to ban shoes? At what point do you draw the line in terms of lethal potential? A car is an extremely dangerous object. In terms of mass slaughter, I would say that a car has much more potential than a gun. Are you going to ban automated vehicles? What about a welding torch and a couple tanks of propane gas? Should we ban mechanical tools and barbecues? As I was saying to matt in the other line of argument, it's not the
ease with which you can do the thing, it's the fact that you can do it at all.
You call saying, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," an equivocation. I find that pretty humorously ironic, given the existential clause inherent to the expression of the sort of killing action in question. Why? Because a human being was involved, and responsible. It's not "Yesterday at ________ School a gun murdered a bunch of innocent children. It's "Yesterday at _________ School a man/woman shot a bunch of people." There's a reason for that. A gun is just the weapon of choice. And as I said above, I'm glad people are so unimaginative as to stick with guns for this sort of thing. It could be much worse.
That said, I don't think private citizens anywhere in the world have the ' right ' ( certainly not in the context of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights " rights " ) to carry handguns.
I'd limit handguns to law enforcement / military and target shooters only. Banned to everyone else. I mean the only reason handguns exist - beyond target shooting - is to assault and / or kill another human being isn't it ?
Now we get to the real issue. Unfortunately, there are a number of people who believe the way you do. But believe me, the day they begin to take your liberties from you, and in my opinion that day was quite a while ago if you live in almost any part of the world, will start the countdown on your reversal of opinion on this matter.
What happens when the police of your suddenly totalitarian government invade your home with the intent to execute because say, you, your relatives, your wife, or one of your children did or said something they didn't like? Humor me and imagine it briefly (God forbid that it should actually happen, I would never wish that on anyone). How would you feel about it then?
You're correct in saying that the only reason guns exist is for the application of violent force (for the purpose of argument, I can come up with other reasons such as deterrence, but let's not get into that), this is true (once again just for simplification). However, how you can believe that only those already in power have the right to express this force baffles me. I can argue the point ad nauseam, but honestly, if you want to trade away your freedom for slavery just to avoid a very small chance of some kids getting shot at a school, well, that's up to you.
Me, I would be more concerned about the real issues, like why it's so easy for one person to go into a school and commit such a slaughter. Where are the checks, and what about the moral responsibility of teachers to defend their flock? And students to protect themselves? Yeah, duck behind your desk and let everyone die. That's real nice. Even if they don't have weapons, why are they all such cowards as to hide and wait for death? ****, throw some textbooks at him and charge him while he's stunned or reloading. (I remember reading the article, wherein someone had supposedly yelled "He's reloading. Run!" - I mean, honestly). With some combat training, such might not be the case. And why is this sort of thing occurring. Where, in what and when is the system failing to either help or identity and remove these people?
