In a free society, we also have freedom of association. If you wish to conceal carry, I do not wish to associate with you at any time, ever. Stay away.
I’ve already conceded the rational part of this argument, but I think it needs to be limited, and here’s why:
- Why don’t Mother’s Against Drunk Driving seem to care about abortion ?
- Why don’t the people at the Susan G. Komen Foundation seem to care about people dying every day from pancreatic cancer ?
- Why don’t those who want to see all of our POW-MIAs found and brought home … seem to give a darn about missing and exploited children right here at home ?
- Why don’t the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or the ASPCA, give a damn about human beings ?
- Why don’t the anti-abortion advocates care about death row inmates or people killed by distracted drivers ?
Like you, I could go on. But it doesn’t seem like a GD ethos … at least to me. I’m not sure whataboutism moves this conversation forward, even though I have accepted the fundamental elements of your premise.
We (overwhelmingly) all make choices that contribute to misery and death of somebody somewhere, or – at the very least – may diminish them or not enrich them optimally. Maybe it’s worth conceding that point, and then returning to the main topic.
ETA: and if this even approaches junior modding, please accept my apologies and act appropriately.
And all of those groups have to convince people to care about their issue–that’s essentially what the thread is about. What would make gun owners care about the gun control advocates’ desire to impose gun controls? I have given IMO answers based on my long life as a gun owner, somewhat involved in Republican politics pre-2014, and fairly familiar with various gun enthusiast communities. The main message is “you can’t come at us just wanting to get rid of our guns”, if you take that as the default position, we will always fight you tooth and nail. I think a lot can be done without that unproductive position, but for some reason most gun control organizations seem to default or lean heavily on bans–the stupid, ill-considered Assault Weapons Ban concept is trotted out as the first action point almost without fail.
Speaking of which, when I did the topic summary for post #184 I wasn’t able to determine your opinion. Do you think there is X amount of mass shootings that would change gun supporters’ minds?
~Max
It’s not whataboutism.
People in this thread (and elsewhere) are expressing the idea that gun owners are willing to accept that the consequence of legal gun availability will be innocent people dying, and they are shocked and horrified at how callous that reaction is. How could someone want something to be legal that causes innocent deaths? How can you stand by and watch mass shootings and still not change your mind?
My entire point is that this is not some unique trait of gun owners. Pretty much everyone is willing to accept that things they want in their lives, and the widespread availability of these things, will kill innocent people.
And if you’re willing to make that tradeoff, why would highly publicized instances of the consequences of that tradeoff change your mind? If you’re willing to accept that people will die so you can get drunk, how many innocent people dying from DUI drivers crashing into them would it take to change your mind? Presumably there would be no number, because you’ve decided that innocent people dying in DUIs is an acceptable cost to the legal availability of alcohol.
Your attitude (assuming you want alcohol to be legal like the vast majority of Americans) is exactly the same as gun owners. There’s something that you want to be legal and that you want to be able to use, and the availability of that thing is going to kill people. You accept that. You’re just not objective enough to realize that you do the exact same thing you’re saying gun owners are abhorrent monsters for doing.
First, please let me say that I respect your values, here (though they differ from mine), and that I really respect the way you have made your arguments.
Sometimes, ‘we’ may agree on the facts but our values are at odds. At least wrt you and me, I think that’s where we are: I think we’re working from similar facts but that our respective values take our conclusions to different places.
But I don’t think the two sentences above follow. I think it’s a non-sequitur.
I think the topic is the number of mass shootings that might be required to change the mind of gun rights advocates.
I think it’s of little utility to extend that to every possible thing where each of us might make individual decisions that might inure to even the marginal detriment of even another individual.
It just seems red-herring-ish and/or tu quoque-ish to me.
This feels hijack-y, so this is as far as I’ll take this:
[or choose your own source]
I don’t see any daylight between this alcohol argument and the numerous definitions of whataboutism/tu quoque found online.
[/end]
It is whataboutism.
~Max
I understand what whataboutism is. I am not engaging in whataboutism. I can see why, superficially, you would conclude that I am, but remember that this thread was an attempt by the OP to understand the attitudes of people who could want something to be legally available despite the legal availability causing innocent deaths.
I attempted to help him understand why people could have such an attitude by demonstrating that the vast majority of Americans, probably including him, already used that exact same logic on other issues. They just perceive them differently, for reasons I explained in my first post.
Whataboutism is intended to distract. I am not distracting, I am addressing his issue head-on, I am attempting to enlighten.
If my post said “why worry about guns? heart attacks, cancer, and car crashes kill way more people, what are you doing about those first?” that would be whataboutism.
If another post said “how can anyone be comfortable with advocating for something to be legal, knowing that it being legal will end up killing people?” and I explained “people, include you, make such judgments all the time, let me demonstrate so you understand and recognize your own motivations”, that is not whataboutism.
I’ve heard LOTS of anecdotal stories about how poor rural families’ diets were supplemented by game hunted by various family members, because times were tight.
One thing that hasn’t really come up w.r.t. gun supporters’ minds is the notion:
Why should the actions of some asshole somewhere else who can’t behave himself affect MY legal right to do something I enjoy and do responsibly?
It’s like the teacher making the whole class miss recess because the class dickhead decided to be disruptive.
I can’t help but think that if states wanted to put some sort of broad driving restrictions into place (ignition interlocks, curfews, etc…) because of the actions of some drunk drivers, that people would lose their minds for the exact same reason. Why should the actions of some jerk who is misbehaving curtail MY rights or privileges? (essentially what @SenorBeef points out above).
I mean, I GET it… I have several guns, the vast majority of which were inherited. And I keep them responsibly and use them responsibily. My knee-jerk thought is basically what I said earlier in the post- why does some other asshole’s bad behavior have anything to do with my right to buy, possess and use guns? The problem isn’t the guns any more than drunk driving is a problem with car or alcohol availability. It’s with the behavior of the assholes.
I guess if we want to restrict to that–a number probably 4-5x higher than we have now, maybe even more so–at the very least mass shootings would need to represent responsibility for a majority of homicide deaths in America, and even then, it will likely have to be much, much higher. The reason being at core, we simply don’t associate those illegal gun uses with our legal gun use, but there is probably some very high level of death that would carve off enough casual gun owners and convince them to try gun restrictionism (which I think would likely be meaningless at addressing the problem.)
The premise of the question in thread title is essentially flawed because it makes an association between events and gun policies that gun owners simply do not accept–you can disagree with them not accepting it, but that doesn’t change their minds.
It is my believe that if you want to work with gun owners to try and pass some gun regulations, you have to find a way to associate with gun owners on values that gun owners hold. The premise of “we need to add restrictions to you owning a gun, or prohibit certain types of guns, because bad people do bad things”, is never going to persuade many of us. However, a premise like this, “responsible gun owners know how to safely operate a firearm, and that is an important responsibility of gun ownership, so we think there should be a relatively straight forward safety class you have to take before buying your first gun.” That is going to get a lot more traction with gun owners, appeal to their responsibility to be good gun owners, instead of attacking the concept of gun ownership, and you’ll at least make some level of progress.
The link between mass shootings and gun supporters’ opinions - that’s the topic for debate, not a premise of it.
~Max
I’m going to quote Niels Bohr on this one:
Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future!
I am 100% willing to trade more deaths for the Right to Free Speech, the Right of a Free Press, the Right to non-excessive bail, the right to a jury trial, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from unreasonable searches,freedom from self-incrimination, right to Due process, and so forth.
Sure the 5th amendment protects criminals, but also the rest of us. Yes, the 1st Ad protects assholes like Tucker Carlson, but all of us also.
Without the Bill of Rights, the Police state could pretty much stamp out crime. But it wouldn’t be worth it.
Are you willing to get rid of the Bill of Rights for more security? If we don’t allow criminals bail, due process, the right to not self-incriminate, and the right to a jury trails, we’d have a lot less deaths. Are you willing to trade those rights for less deaths?
Benjamin Franklin : "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
I am in favor of a license to carry a gun in public, and most states have that. I think we need nationwide “shall issue” laws, where you get to carry a concealed weapon if you pass the background check. Just like you need a drivers license to drive a car on the public roads, but not on the family farm.
Now I know what Patrick Henry really meant:
“Give me liberty or give me (Dr.) Deth !”
These are all rights that serve real purposes in making our country a better place to live. Countries that uphold these rights are better places to live BECAUSE of those rights. Even if some people abuse those rights, enforcing them for all prevents the government from becoming tyrannical.
Gun rights don’t improve life. Gun rights don’t prevent the government from becoming tyrannical, not in the last 150 years since the rise of modern nation-states. They just lead to a lot of innocent people dying.
The 40000-50000 Americans who die each year, and the kids who die in Drunk driving accidents, all would disagree. If they were alive to do so.
Yes, that is illegal in many states.
Yes, many states have such laws, for example California.
And indeed, several of us have said this needs to be fixed.
Yep. We have had at least one poster here admit the goal is to repeal the 2nd, and mass confiscations.
Most Gun owners WANT to keep guns out of the hands of criminals just as much as non-gun owners do. There is indeed, broad based support for background checks on gun sales. However, the GOP will block everything the Dems want. The GOP does this for several reasons- Mitch likes the feeling of power, and also the GOP has so badly lost the demographic war they have to kowtow to all sorts of reactionary tiny minorities- the small number who want ALL abortions banned, the small number of outspoken violent racists, and yes, the small number of single issue NRA members.
We can have reasonable gun laws if we get rid of the GOPs Jim Crow voter suppression laws, and get a solid majority in Congress. That is the reason no gun laws have been passed, why no abortion protection laws have been passed and why no voting rights laws have been passed.
What would change your mind about the 1st Ad? You don’t hate Fox news enough? The lies spread by Fox, etc and Conservative Talk radio have perhaps doubled the number of American deaths by covid. We could have saved FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND 500,000 is we have been able to stop them from spouting their lies. Was 500K lives enough to want to curtail the 1st Ad?
Starting with the Car whataboutism, this thread has so many off the narrow focus sidetracks that I’m closing the mess.
Next gun thread, please report posts that leave the narrow focus sooner.