Why is it that the handgun issue is always debated on terms of whether or not you ‘need’ a handgun, or whether or not it will reduce crime? How about discussing it as an issue of freedom vs state control?
Can you imagine if we debated our other freedoms the way we debate guns? A free press? Well, isn’t it worth curbing someone’s right to speak if it would result in a good outcome for society to do so? Isn’t that pretty much the justification for restrictions of a free press in any despotic country? To maintain peace, and order, and stability. All those rabble-rousers and protestors - it would be great if we just silenced them so that we could live in more harmony.
And motorcycles - there’s no ‘need’ for a motorcycle, and they have accident rates much higher than that of cars. Think of the hundreds of lives a year we could save if we just banned motorcycles. Every one of those dead bike riders is someone’s child. Think of the poor mothers, losing hundreds of children a year to those death traps!
Private airplanes? Ban them! A bunch of rich people’s toys, emitting far more pollutants than car engines. These airports take up all kinds of space that could be used for other things. No one needs an airplane. And dozens of people a year are killed in Canada in small plane crashes. Perhaps as many as are killed by guns. They’re not environmentally friendly, they are noisy for people who live by the airport, and they certainly don’t help the poor or disadvantaged. Private airplane ownership is a travesty, I tell you.
And skiing is a horrible thing. We tear up pristine mountain areas, develop them, cut down trees, and build hotels. And for what? So a few crazies can fly down a mountain at high speed? No one needs to do that. Think of what we could do if those billions of dollars were put into education or health care! And speaking of health care, why should I have to pay for the broken legs and physical therapy of someone who thought it was their ‘right’ to go flying down a mountain? WE pay for their medical care. Why do we tolerate this?
And of course, there’s porn, strip clubs, alcohol, gambling… These things destroy lives, put people into the social welfare system, bring crime into our communities, and exploit women. And no one ‘needs’ any of it! It should all be illegal. We’d be better off as a country, right?
Where do you want to stop with this line of thinking? When you abandon principle and start approaching every issue as a purely pragmatic, “Whatever’s best for the country” issue, then all that stops you from banning anything is that there’s a big enough constituency to protect it. Rule of the mob. THEIR fetishes, hobbies, and destructive activities are protected. But if you’re in a small enough minority, the only thing protecting your interests is obscurity. The mob simply isn’t paying attention. But once they do, look out.
That’s not the kind of country I want to live in. I want to live in a country where it is understood that people have a right to live their own lives, and that restrictions on those rights should only happen when there is absolute necessity or when you are directly damaging other people through your actions.
Look what has happened with the smoking debate. At first, anti-smoking advocates claimed that the problem was lack of education. People just didn’t know how dangerous smoking was. So we got mandatory health notices and public funding for anti-smoking campaigns. That was the least intrusive invasion of our rights. But then they wrapped themselves in the second-hand smoke argument, claiming that you WERE hurting others by smoking in enclosed public spaces. So smoking was banned in enclosed public spaces, despite the fact that the second-hand smoke argument rested on very flimsy science. But these advocacy groups never just go away when they’ve gotten enough of what they want. And our standards for what’s acceptable slide after every encroachment on our freedoms. So now we’re starting to ban smoking completely - even outdoors. Note that there is no longer ANY justification for this - no one can credibly make an argument that you are hurting anyone else when you are smoking outside, and they don’t even try. As far as I can tell, the argument is now, “Society has decided that smoking is unacceptable, so we’re just go to ban it wherever we feel like banning it.” There’s no longer even the barest of nods to basic Canadian rights to be left alone when we aren’t hurting others, like there was when the smoking debate started.
When the gun registry was enacted, anti-registry folks were opposed in part on the grounds that the gun control people would never be happy with just registration, but once the people acquiested to this, they’d move on to confiscation. At the time, the Liberals promised, cross-their-hearts, that they had no intention of actually taking anyone’s guns away. Now they have broken their promise - and not because new evidence shows that it would be a good thing for society, or for any other pressing reason. No, they broke their promise merely because some consultant told them it would play well among a certain part of the electorate they needed to hold. This should make anyone sick of these people.