Guitarstv, accolay, milkshake, etc. propose many arguments for regulating guns. Are gun control supporters ready to do the same thing for alcohol?
Sure, as long as they are reasonable and prevent a large number of alcohol related deaths (no regulation is perfect). Hell, I'm fine with regulating how often you go to McDonalds if it will help reduce a huge amount of heart disease deaths. The regulations need to make a visible percentage difference in deaths otherwise what is the point. Whether it's alcohol or obesity or guns, if regulations cause for example a 50% reduction in deaths, then I'm all for it. If a regulation only causes like a 1% reduction in deaths, then no, the freedom lost is not worth the lives saved. I don't know where the best compromise is, but somewhere there is a better compromise than our current situation.
Just curious about your response here. Again, we probably have some significant philosophical differences on things, but I appreciate your consistency. You comment on things in regards to evaluating if something is effectively reducing deaths in a very practical/numbers based perspective. I am curious where this viewpoint takes you. In general, my perspective is very much biased towards feeling that the government restricting people's freedoms to do something that impacts no one but themselves should be a last resort situation, and I don't feel that it is worth it in many cases (i.e. a person restricted in buying guns who hasn't hurt someone is having their freedoms restricted before they have done something wrong). Not trying to get into the specifics of the gun control discussion here, but I'm curious what you think, since it appears that you see things differently. You mention restricting things if they are successful at preventing deaths on a significant scale. I guess my question is, how do you draw the line on restricting freedoms in general. The cliche argument is that we could live in a 1984 environment with no privacy where crime would be significantly reduced. It's a straw man, of course, but it's not to say that it wouldn't be true. If the government completely monitored everything, general crime would almost certainly go down, but almost everyone would agree the trade-off wouldn't be worth it. Again, for me, it's a fairly easy distinction - I almost always default to more freedom even if the trade-off is more risks. What would you say would be how you look at the situation? How do you determine if the freedom is worth the risks, even if the risks are significant? Are the freedoms ever worth the risks (I'm assuming the answer to this is yes at least in some situations)?
So I'll share my viewpoint on your thoughts here Wolf.
For me, the issue here comes down to that I view the inherent purpose of guns and what I hear the vast majority of people who argue to own them with as few restrictions as possible to be heavily based on what I view as bad reasons. Very few people argue the hunting angle when I talk with them. The argue some variation of "I need a gun to protect myself from bad hombres and the apocalypse", so that clearly means that their primary driver for owning a gun is ton inflict harm or to threaten to inflict harm on someone else. I do understand that this is couched in the fact that they are not going to take that step except out of self defense, or at least we assume that. However, when you boil it down, the driver to own the gun can in no way be shaped as something we would all smile at as wonderful, joyful and fun. It is instead wrapped in fear, anxiety and paranoia.
So therefore when guns are lined up against something else, like alcohol, car exhaust or something else, that is not engaged in or desired from a mainly negative perspective it just does not resonate with me. It becomes a false equivalency because the disconnect on what drives most partakers in the other thing being compared to a gun overrides everything else. Most people who like alcohol enjoy the camaraderie of meeting their friends at a bar, the taste of the drink, the way it helps them relax. Most people who want a car, want it as others have already pointed out for transportation, to be able to see parts of the country they live in that that could not easily bike or walk to and to avoid the expense of air or rail travel and have more freedom of movement. Far fewer people are drawn to alcohol primarily as a means to get stone drunk as a regular means to forget bad memories or to toss into a burglars eyes to allow them to get away. Far fewer people want a car to be able to run away from a dangerous city or to allow for escape in the event of a mugging. Again, the primary motivator of ownership or participation of most things is positive, but for most gun owners I have spoken with it is negative. It is protection from individuals, governments, tyranny. Even the hunters I know have those things high on their list along with the pleasure they get from hunting.
So because I view the primary motivator of a gun to be negative I am more comfortable restricting their freedoms than I would be for something whose purpose and desire for ownership is not to harm someone or something (even if it's just a paper target) and the assumption that I want one because one day I may need to threaten to cause that harm. To be clear, I feel the same way about any weapon, not just guns. I need a steak knife, but I do not need to own a ninja spear. And for me there is a difference because of the lethality of guns versus other weapons. As several have mentioned, 500+ people would have been a lot harder to injure with a knife or a bow and arrow. So the magnitude of the damage that can be wreaked has to factor in to how we regulate something. To jump on to the crazy tangent earlier, it's why it is (and should be) really hard to procure a nuclear bomb versus a firecracker or a pop rock. Again the false equivalency that a gun is just a tool and should be regulated no more than a hammer or a drill or a screwdriver is a far reach for me. It's a tool capable (and specifically designed) to cause far more damage. I could beat you to death with a hammer, but it's a lot easier with a gun where I do not even need to get near you.
And as former player said, I do not feel less free because I do not own a gun, nor would I feel more free because I did. I feel the same way about whether or not I can own my bicycle or my breakfast cereal. It does not impact my level of freedom feeling.