Reply #19: I'm not going to make fun of anybody who doesn't deserve it. [View All]

[Pert_UK]

You make good points here......I only go for sarcasm when somebody deserves it (in the above case when somebody ranted about something that I had specifically and deliberately not said).

I was expecting someone to bring this argument up, i.e. guns can be misused, so can something else (e.g. cars), so why isn't Pert arguing that cars be banned for the sake of consistency.

To be honest, it's a difficult point to address comprehensively. However, my view is that:

- cars are essential, guns are not (I'm expecting some comeback on this). If cars disappeared from public hands then people couldn't get to the shops, couldn't get to work, couldn't get to hospital etc. If guns disappeared then I struggle to see a genuine, similar problem that would ensue
- a car is designed to get you from A to B. A gun is designed (generally) to kill. Yes, yes, yes, I know all about target shooting but at the end of the day a gun is designed as a weapon, and manufacturers do construct them with the primary aim of being able to offer maximum killing potential
- generally speaking (although there are a few cases) people don't reach for the car and use it as a weapon in a moment of anger/madness/drunken stupidity. If they do, odds are that they might kill themselves and maybe one or two other people, who would need to be outside, and who would have a chance to see the car coming and escape. Someone reaching for a gun has a far more practical, efficient means of killing a large number of people with little chance of them escaping.

Actually, there are some other arguments around this, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Regarding the 2nd amendment, I'd go along with Spentastic's views......freedom to own a gun (as I've said before) does not sit comfortably within that list of other freedoms, and in addition this freedom relies on a very specific interpretation of the 2nd amendment.