Please don't accept spreadsheet justifications for gun violence.

[patrice]

You have seen this done; I wanted to comment on it in another thread where some newbie was doing it, but the thread got hid.

TTE, "Gun violence is acceptable, because more people are protected by guns than lose their lives due to them; or gun violence kills fewer people than ________________ (whatever) does. "

Fewer humans compared to more humans.

It seems like faulty logic to me: if one instance of something isn't valuable in and of itself, if one doesn't justify some course of action, more instances of it don't make it more valuable. It's value is unspecified except for quantity (and being unspecified it lacks any of he traits that make human life what is), like sand: in and of itself, regardless of any other traits or functions, is a bucket of sand, more valuable than a cup of sand?

If one dead child isn't too much, if one dead child doesn't justify changed behaviors, more dead children aren't going to affect whatever it is that makes that one child worthless.

More people dying from some other cause, does not mitigate a lesser number of people dying from the use of guns, because if one has no value, then a million doesn't either. And it is that fact that causes gun violence in the first place, so the whole thing is a circular argument.

Don't let people pull this on you. It's bullshit.

[Loudly]

1. Another absurd justification: Good guys with guns is the antidote for bad guys with guns.

Asks us to accept the premise that a higher dose of poison is the antidote.

Cynical nonsense.

[patrice]

2. Indeed! As though the "good" guys with guns are somehow inherently immune to what makes bad guys

with guns bad, or at least enough of them are immune that we should tolerate the whole toxic cohort for the sake of those "good" guys who, "good" though they may be, are likely NEVER to do anything constructive for the rest of us with their guns anyway.

Oh honestly!!! We all have had to keep our mouths shut about all of this for sooooooooooooo long, that it appears there's a whole treasure trove of phenomena to be mined, although I have been against the proliferation of weapons ever since I can remember, because, since we weren't allowed to talk about it, most of us, myself included, weren't thinking about it either. Now we all have some catching up to do.

[Care Acutely]

5. Agreed! I do not believe we can ever again allow our voices to be silenced by gun cult bullies.

Fuck them, and the right-wing cult they hail from.

[patrice]

6. We need to find ways to help ordinary people find their authentic voices & that begins with their

recognition of parroting Wayne LaPierre or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh just might not be their OWN voice. That's a little threatening for lots of people to consider, so I don't know how we are going to go about this.

....................................

I have 3 nieces in health care; one a licensed nurse practitioner. All three are amazingly cool customers, but I think they'd definitely get a chuckle out of your profile pic.

Pleased to meet you, Care Acutely!

[Care Acutely]

7. Pleased to meet you too, Patrice!

I am a student emergency nurse practitioner. It's a difficult, but consistently and overwhelmingly rewarding life.

[msongs]

3. america's gun owners who worship guns are the problem nt

[patrice]

4. Yes, of course, I was just thinking about some of the things that they say. nt