I generally consider every broad based policy change in a country of 320 million as coming with some costs in life once it works through all the winners and losers. I could have basically pulled the same hypothetical on almost every member of Congress before their vote on ACA if I was a malicious and darkly humorous deity. Saving lives by increasing access to medical care seems like an easy win. With a large enough population over a long enough period some will get a procedure they wouldn’t have otherwise and die from complications/malpractice. Some will commit more resources to medical insurance (quite possibly making the best risk decision without omniscience) and less to reducing the risk that actually kills them. Apply a tiny risk against a big enough population, for long enough, and some will pay the cost. Whether it passed or didn’t some innocent lives were being decided upon in that vote.
I find it actually helps me to make decisions in the face of risk. All decisions come with some risks. Not deciding is also risky. I may have been accused of being morbid though.
They don’t “hate guns” and having an armed security while at the same time wanting stricter gun control laws for civilians is not in any way hypocritical.
No, they don’t hate guns, for the most part. They consider guns a very useful wedge issue and don’t want to upset the status quo entirely. The “true believers” who hate guns are found much more frequently in places likd this board than in elected office.
I wouldn’t because I couldn’t without radically altering my own life and that of many others. Giving up my vehicle would affect lots of people, not just me. I would lose my job (which helps supply people all over the world needing life-saving emergency operations with the tools their surgeon needs to perform it as soon as humanly possible), access to my kids, my home and most freedom of movement.
I might be able to be able to do something radical like sell my home and move within walking distance of work but that would make the other effects worse because they are completely incompatible without free access to my own vehicle. Not everyone lives in dense urban areas and has their life contained within a compact area.
I already know there is a real risk that I will kill someone with my vehicle someday. I am careful as I can be but I also drive a high number of miles per year sometimes in very bad conditions. I see terrible accidents on the interstate to work all the time and I am not so cocky to think that it couldn’t happen to me but that is the price you pay to play.
As to the guns question specifically, yes I would give them up personally because guns are not an important part of my life but they may be for others and they may be as valuable to them as a vehicle is to me. There are plenty of people that use guns as a daily tool for their livelihood or truly need them to protect their safety from animals or other people. They will have to run their own cost/benefit analysis and I don’t believe there is just one right answer.
Maybe; maybe not. With what I own (mostly flintlock and/or antique) I would assume the person died from being an idiot and trying to shoot it with smokeless powder. Who am I to decide to eliminate a possible Darwin Award winner?
Stricter gun control law for “civilians” - meaning THE PEOPLE - but not for popes and politicians, huh? Why, are their precious rear ends more valuable? If anyone shouldn’t be especially protected it is the totally corrupt politicians, and the higher up they’ve crawled on the political dung heap the worse they are and the less special protection they should have.
