Recap of a post in GD

[AndyS]

I started this post in GD because Guns are a top issue in the news right now. I want to critique it and am posting this in both Gun groups to be fair and give all an opportunity to consider it without violating the GD rules.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215274087#post40

There were just over 50 responses by about 21 respondents. Of those four from the positive gun point of view, 14 from the other and two mostly neutral.

I asked two questions: If a gun is good for self protection and the US has 325M people and 395M guns, why are more people shot in the US than in any other developed country?
and
If more cars on freeways means more car accidents and more swimming pools in a community mean more drownings, what exempts guns from the same correlation?

I got two answers to the first, gangs and a more thoughtful reply that took into account societal ills but it total explained that we really don't have a problem.

Another respondent, also thoughtful, simply said there are a lot of factors and it's too complicated to solve.

What struck me was the methodology of one of the gun supporters. The key to that argument was to break gun victims into sub groups and minimize each group; suicides don't count as violence, domestic violence is only 12% so it's too small a subset to worry about, gangs don't count, mass shootings are a tiny subset of shootings so not worthy of consideration etc. A second method was to simply deflect; this thread isn't about this or that so your post is off topic.

I got no answers whatsoever to the second.

So all in all a post with two simple questions that went unanswered in a satisfactory way, at least for me. YMMV

[Hoyt]

1. You asked very good questions in the Gungeon. I believe most gunners are like Lindsay Graham, scared

of minorities.

Unfortunately, the Gungeon no longer allows me to post there, having expressed my opinion that gunz -- particularly semiautomatic assault style weapons and public toting -- are highly correlated with racism, low self-esteem, and perhaps irrational paranoia. Interestingly, although I have been banned from the Gungeon, I can still recommend/like posts that aren't gun-humper inspired and edit my old posts. I wish we had an "angry" thingie.

Gunners come up with a lot of rubbish to rationalize their need for such weapons, event though innocent people are dying daily because of their affliction.

[billh58]

2. In the natural world

all species defend themselves by various methods, but by and large they don't use weapons -- that is strictly a human invention. The use of weapons allows the "pecking order" to be artificially manipulated, and "stand your ground" laws become a form of legal vigilantism (read murder). The pro-gun arguments put forward by the average gun nut are all based on rationalizing their paranoid anti-social behavior, which often leads to the death or injury of an innocent bystander.

I saw an article recently that pointed out that the term "gun control" is used by gun fetishists as proof that "liberals" are attempting to cancel their God-given civil right to own a deadly weapon. A more accurate term would be "gun violence regulation" aimed at regulating who, and under what circumstances, a citizen can own and use a gun. Hunting and home defense would be legitimate uses, whereas carrying an AR-15 into Costco (or anywhere in public), or allowing an alcoholic wife-beater to own a gun, would not.

The gunner argument that other forms of dangerous goods are not protected by the Bill of Rights, and are rightfully regulated, is on its face non-sensical -- any dangerous item is a potential threat to life and limb and can be rightfully regulated. All forms of Constitutional protections are subject to regulation in the public interest: speech, assembly, commerce, representation, and the list goes on.

The right-wing and the American Republican Party in particular, support organizations like the NRA, The Proud Boys, QAnon, the KKK, and other racist, homophobic, and bigoted groups because that is the America they want. Guns are just one excuse to further their goals of bullying and intimidation in order to achieve their fascist goals. January 6, 2021 was just a start.