Reply to Children Sacrificed to Pay for Easy Access to Guns

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If our society chooses to have easy access to guns, part of the price we pay is two year olds getting shot.  Is the price worth it?[/quote]

What an idiotic thing to say. We choose to make it very easy to obtain a driver's license, part of the price we pay is two year olds getting killed in accidents. Is the price worth it? [/quote]

Yes, that's exactly the right question of costs versus benefits.

And yes, our society considers the cost of some people dying in auto accidents to be worth the benefit of easy transportation for millions of people.  But [b]we try to reduce that cost by imposing fairly strict controls on who is allowed to drive, tests those drivers have to take, high insurance costs for drivers, lots of speed limits and other rules to keep drivers safe, penalties when drivers are being unsafe, strict controls on auto manufacturers to make their cars safer, mandatory seatbelts, etc.  [/b]

Now let's ask the same question about easy access to guns.  The societal benefits of guns are a lot less than cars.  Also, those benefits are highly concentrated in just the relatively small pool of gun owners.  We see lots of costs of people dying needlessly from guns, including many children.  We also see lots of costs from guns being misused for criminal purposes to rob people.  There are other costs as well.  So what has our society done to try to reduce those costs?  Not much.  There are far fewer restrictions on guns, or efforts to make guns safe.

[b]As I wrote in my original posts, I'm not advocating for the elimination of all guns. [/b] I'm just trying to highlight the high human costs of easy access, and encourage people to consider why our society hasn't taken steps to reduce those costs.  [/quote]

Okay, we all agree there is cost vs benefits - keep this in mind next time someone brings up individual cases of accidents as this tread was started to do. The "even one is too many" logic is idiotically simplistic once you've acknowledge that there is a cost vs benefit decision to be made. We good citizens here do not wish harm and misfortune on any individual, but we must acknowledge that life decisions all have associated risks that run along a continuum. Any all-or-nothing type of logic is counter productive and adds nothing to the dialog.

I am in strong agreement that we should place restrictions on who can own a firearm - and the law does currently place such restrictions. Whether the restrictions are enough is a discussion we can all have, but arguing that no one should be able to own a firearm as many are doing in this thread is a conversation stopper.

There are significant benefits to gun ownership. Why else would it be such a large industry. The benefits of gun ownership has been brought up and rehashed over and over so I won't repeat the obvious. Whether it's sport, fun, or self defense, people find value in gun ownership and decide to do so. Gun ownership rate in the US is 41%, this is a minority but it's not a small minority. In many states, gun ownership is a majority. However, even if gun owners were a small minority as you seem to have imagined, the goal of a democratic republic is to implement the will of the majority[b] while protecting the rights of the minority. [/b] Without the second part, all you have is mob rule and I doubt any one would agree that's a superior way to govern a nation. The concept that you are justifying trading off the right of gun ownership because they are just a small minority is sickening.[/quote]

I don't think you've actually been reading the thread.  See the bolded part of what pp wrote above.

You're right that it's not going to be possible to eliminate guns.  But there are plenty of polls out there to indicate that the majority does want more restrictions. To continually avoid putting restrictions in place, rights of those who feel unsafe are being violated.  You can't charge people for leaving their guns where children can get them - there's no requirement for them to do so.

I can't understand why people like you wouldn't at least advocate for licensing, registration and obligatory safeguards for ownership in homes with children.[/quote]

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