As the person above me pointed out, Washington DC has equally restrictive gun laws, and is one of the most violent places in the United States.
One of the differences between Washington D.C. and Hawaii is that Washington D.C. has no effective means of preventing guns from entering from neighboring states. As most people enter Hawaii on commercial aircraft, Hawaii does.
This is true. There are also significant population differences. What's the gang situation like in Hawaii?
For me the gun issue comes down to a pretty important freedom, to have the ability to defend yourself. There are all sorts of ways to restrict freedoms and make the world safer, I just draw my line a bit differently than you do.
For me, the gun issue comes down to a pretty important freedom, to have the ability to go outside my house and walk around without getting shot.
In Hawaii, we have both the freedom to own as many weapons as we like, including assault rifles and semi-automatics, and the freedom to go anywhere we like without having to worry some asshole with a gun might shoot us. Seems like a pretty good balance to me.
Instead of arguing that it can't be done in the rest of the country, why not be willing to accept some reasonable restrictions on gun ownership in exchange for the freedom to not get shot?
It's already illegal to shoot someone. That's like me saying "I have the freedom to walk around and not get hit by a drunk driver, so alcohol should be illegal (or require extensive background checks, or have breathalyzers in every car, etc)."
Hell, I have the freedom to not get hit in the head with a baseball bat, that doesn't mean kids can't play ball.
If I told you we could reduce violent crime by 30% by instituting mandatory body cameras on everyone in the general population linked to government databases, would you support making it law? Why or why not?
I would not support mandatory body cameras, because it would infringe on personal privacy. I also don't support having surveillance cameras everywhere, but most Americans seem to tolerate that without much problem. I also don't support allowing the government to monitor our emails, text messages and phone conversations, but apparently many Americans are just fine with that as long as it keeps them "safe" from the scary dark-skinned terrorists.
What? You mean you would sacrifice 4,708 people to be murdered, 27,055 to be raped, and lord knows how many children to be abused, simply to avoid reasonable restrictions on privacy? Those numbers are per year by the way.
What about my right to walk down the street without being murdered or raped? Doesn't that outweigh your right to not wear a body camera?