I wish I could find the thread because I wanted to flip through it, but I don’t remember the exact phrasing/keywords of the exchange that stuck in my mind. This was, if I had to guess 15+ years ago.
Someone asked another poster “Would you give up your guns if it was guaranteed that there would never be another shooting?” and the person said “no” and may have invoked ‘protection’ as their reasoning. IIRC, they weren’t just asking this one person to give up their guns, but the premise was that it meant all guns would magically disappear.
I think that’s part of the problem. The ‘gun culture’ is such a part of people’s identity that they just can’t not have one, even if they don’t need one.
This is an existential crisis to the US. It goes beyond individual school shootings.
We are talking about a generation of kids, of teachers, of parents, having to live with trauma, live with guilt, living with school principals dressed in full black, who think nothing of putting two fingers to the head of a child and saying “bang, you’re dead.”
Of kids, having to learn how to close the blinds, turned off the lights, move filing cabinets and desks to barricade, who have to think of arming themselves with school supplies - scissors and sharpened pencils - ready to fight.
This wouldn’t be the same gun fan ex mod who created the Positively Safe Space For Ammosexuals Of The Day thread and dictated the kinds of responses that were allowed in it, would it?
Alright, those of you criticizing Martin Hyde for admitting he’s willing to accept some level innocent death to keep guns legal, I would invite you to please read my post here.
He’s not doing anything that you don’t already do about many issues, it’s just that he has the intellectual integrity to admit it. You’re calling him a monster because he thinks guns are worth it and you don’t, not because he’s making any sort of different calculation than you do one dozens of issues. An alcohol prohibitionist would have just as much right to call you monsters for your endless parade of dead children killed by alcohol-related factors. They could point to every cute kid killed by a drunk driver and say “when will the carnage stop? Why are you willing to let children die just so you can get drunk?” and have just as much a point as you do attacking him.
Do any of you have the intellectual integrity to admit that there are things you prefer to be legal even though the availability/legality of that thing will cost innocent lives? Or are you going to continue to pretend that nothing you enjoy, advocate, or otherwise want available results in innocent deaths?
I think a healthy majority of the people that would be interested in considerably stricter drunk driving laws would also be in favor of more progressive gun control laws.
People can be in favor of more than one thing, even if they don’t make a point of always mentioning one when discussing the other. People can also be in favor of something even if they’re not vocal about it.
But, in any case, responding to ‘why can’t we ban guns’ with ‘what about drinking, why don’t you ban drinking, it’s dangerous too’, is nothing more than whataboutism.
Instead of just bringing up that argument in gun threads where people may be quick to dismiss it, not because they’re worried about a gotcha, but because it’s off topic, maybe start a new thread with it and see where a dedicated discussion goes.
Imagine you had a loved one get killed by a drunk driver and it became a passion for you. How would you feel if every time you tried to discuss the drunk driving problem, people would try to shift the discussion so that it was focused on why you don’t care about the [some other] problem.
No, it is not. Just declaring whataboutism because you don’t have a real defense of an analogy is really lazy.
I’m not saying anything even remotely like “we can’t do anything about guns until we do something about ____”
What I’m saying is that all the people that are saying “oh my god, I can’t believe that that person is willing to have innocent people die so they can keep their access to ____”, and if that ___ is guns, you think that person is a monster, but you are completely oblivious that using the exact same logic, if that thing is alcohol, you are the monster.
I am not shifting any discussion. I am saying “I am willing to have innocent people die so that I can have access to something I don’t really need but want to have” is a very common belief held by almost everyone, and pretending that it’s some extremist, unconscionable view unique to gun owners is delusional. It lacks the self awareness that you, too, are willing to have innocent people die because you don’t want to give something up.
Every invective everyone in this thread has thrown around at Martin because he’s willing to admit that dead people is a price we pay for things that can be dangerous being available can be thrown right back at them for things where they willingly make that very same tradeoff. He just has the intellectual integrity to see it for what it is and admit it, whereas you are all delusional that you do that exact same thing.
You know, there’s a lot I can agree with in this paragraph, but the part I can’t agree with I think shows a very fundamental divide between your views and mine.
This. I can’t grasp how in a hypothetical situation anyone can pick a gun over the lives of 13,500 people. Does human life matter so little to you? It’s your hypothetical, but saying you have the choice between killing thirteen thousand people and having guns- and you pick guns over their lives.
I know that’s not a choice in reality, and you seem open to taking steps to reduce and lessen deaths in concrete ways and I can respect that.
That’s mostly true. The “America sucks” part is an overly broad generalization, though. America sucks only to the extent that gun owners suck and Republicans suck. It’s a loser for Democrats politically because so far the aforementioned sucking gun owners, their lobbyists, and Republicans have dominated the political messaging and disinformation campaigns. The American gun insanity is very much akin to the (lack of) universal health care insanity: a nation where everyone has the right to be shot, but not the right to health care.
I find myself agreeing with you a second time here. Yes, you’re being honest. So were the Nazis about how they felt about Jews. They just wanted a pure Aryan nation. But again, when the subject is guns, and you value your guns more than human lives including the lives of small children, there are consequences for such reprehensibly evil misplaced priorities. You’re a prime example of how “responsible law-abiding gun owners” are in fact the core of the gun violence problem in America. There ought to be a special place in hell for people like you.
This is an excellent point. Also, it’s quite telling that none of the posters attacking Martin have asked him why he believes (as I do) that the right to bear arms is worth preserving despite the human cost.
It’s a totally crappy point, on several different levels. Your inclination to abuse alcohol mostly just endangers you. Your inclination to be a gun nut endangers everyone else.
To the extent that alcohol abuse can potentially endanger others, as in drunk driving, that can be managed through appropriate policy and enforcement. In my country, the DUI rate has been reduced by 70% in the past 30 years. In the US, the rate of gun-related deaths has gone UP by 40% in just the past 20 years, and has always been far, far greater than anywhere else in the developed world. And the incidence of mass shootings is skyrocketing.
The other point here is that alcohol prohibition (remember capital-P Prohibition?) doesn’t work. The US tried it. The rest of the civilized world never did. But gun control does work. The US doesn’t have it in any meaningful way. The rest of the civilized world does. And the facts dramatically prove that it works.