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but you can not find fault with a firearms manufacture that produces a weapon that is mechanically/functionally sound and someone uses it to shoot someone no more than can you find fault with an automobile manufacture under the same manufacturing criteria when someone, for instance gets in a automobile drunk and injures or kills someone. Your argument seems to be clouded with bias against firearms. Is it not?
Thank you, that was my point.
No, I said that you can't meaningfully limit ownership through a permitting process.
Someone that had a little break or was depressed 30 years ago and needed a short stay in the psych, or a few visits with a doctor, shouldn't necessarily be prevented by that distant past in protecting themselves. It should be a rule with an appeals system(which are legal).
I don't see how you can say it isn't right to include Mexico in a gun comparison with America, but consider it proper to involve Jamaica. And that you argue this just further supports my point. A more violent society with less guns has more murders than a less violent one with significantly more guns. There is more than just gun volume at work.
How does not being able to own a firearm imply "not being able to protect themselves"?
Again: there was a time when a car that would skewer the driver with the steering column could be considered not to have any defects. I'm just talking about a similar change in attitude toward firearms: when a gun that was bought to neutralize intruders in your home also has the unintended side effect of increasing your and your family's risk of suicide, this is just as much of a defect as when a car that was bought to get you around increases your risk of being skewered through the chest.
Should I have a bias *in favour* of products designed to take human life?
Americans have the right to protect themselves with a gun.
Non sequitur.
What "extensive training" is required to, say, remove landscaping from your house that could be cover for burglars? What "extensive training" is required to bring a friend when visiting an ATM at night (or deciding to wait until the morning to do your withdrawal)?
And the best sharpshooter in the world sometimes misses... especially under pressure.
I disagree with your inherent assumption: that protecting onesself from violent crime is only a matter of neutralizing an immediate violent threat at the moment it becomes a life-or-death matter as if our actions leading up to that point have no bearing on what will happen.
You have a valid point that the firearm is the leading means of suicide by males, whereas poison is the leading means among females. Now, if you think about it, if firearms were removed from the equation would the number of suicides be reduced? I seriously doubt it. Therefore would it not be better to focus on the why of suicides vice the how?
No, you do not have to be "in favor" of firearms, but what I was trying to bring across is that your bias may be clouding you reasoning. For example I point out your argument that just because there is a firearm available it increases the chance of suicide, but the facts are that people are going to commit suicide regardless of the means available; point in case females and poison.
"Everybody dies eventually, so why worry about recalling all those airbags that have been killing people?"
I think you should think about whether this is true for you.
From your own source:
Since your opinion is immune to facts - even from sources you cite yourself - I'm inclined to agree.
Nobody's forcing you to keep posting.
I mean that by denying someone the ability to own a gun, you are denying them their rightful faculties of defense, akin to telling someone they cannot learn self defense techniques, or that they cannot, as you say, alter the landscaping to prevent hiding spaces for criminals or bring a friend to the ATM.
Ahh, but the mere presence of a firearm and the pose of even moderate capacity is a strong deterrent known to prematurely end a dangerous situation satisfactorily. And if it doesn't work, well it is your decision to have that firearm and not know how to use it.
My assumption is that it is possible for an individual to find himself in a dangerous situation facing multiple or armed attackers that he could not have prevented from occurring. I am then postulating that over the course of all of the lifetimes of people on earth to come it is absurd to assert that wrongful violence will, never, against all precautions fall upon someone. Because of these, I am taking it as a given that at some point somewhere someone will find themselves in a situation facing violence. That person, whether it is one guy a thousand years from now or one of a thousand guys tomorrow, deserves individually the right to choose whether he will defend himself to the fullest or not.
You're still ignoring the fact that for any legitimate use of a firearm, the desired goal can be accomplished any number of other ways, regardless of whether that goal is to not be robbed at the ATM, to not be the victim of a home invasion, etc.
The presence of a firearm can also escalate a situation. It can turn a merely unpleasant encounter into a fatal one.
... with all the risk to yourself and bystanders that this entails.
Lots of things are "possible". For instance, it's possible for a firearm in the home to be used against a member of the family that lives there. It's possible that an unsecured firearm will be stolen and used to commit a crime. For a rational position, we have to consider all possibilities and their relative likehoods and severity of outcome.
... and screw the right to life of the guy he shoots, eh?
And what if my legitimate use of a gun is as a last resort measure when my life is imperiled by miscreants?
Therefore? If it is established the possession of a firearm can save your person, there is no legitimate reason to broadly deny said ability. Take a look at these scenarios:
That simply isn't true. A rational position includes morality and sometimes directly preventing evil involves the active perpetration of evil. Denying someone the ability to defend themselves (and per my prior post, and you haven't raised complaint to the thrust of that argument, someone will need a gun to defend themselves) is an active evil.
You surrender your right to live when you bring the violent threat of death against the peaceful.
You can require permits; those permits cannot substantially inhibit the purchase of firearms without due cause.
So what? Statistically some people do use guns to defend themselves, and some of them need the gun to do so. That is all that matters.
No, it doesn't. It just protects our right to bear arms, full stop. Any legal purpose added to that right is covered. I have a right to bear arms: in the militia, against invading foreign powers, against ruinous tyranny brought about by a coup, in defense of my person, to go to a shooting range and plunk a few targets, etc. etc. All of them are covered.
Indeed, let's be honest. Like noting that by militia the founders meant every able-bodied man, and the purpose was to be an ever present warning that the people, backed by weapons held with deadly intent, reserve all final authority. The government is supposed to be afraid of us not rule over us.
The site I sourced removed Jamaica from the graph because it isn't a developed country. Neither of the graphs I posted included Jamaica.
Why do you insist on only framing gun use in this one rare type of situation? A handgun bought for "self-defense" is much more likely to be used in the suicide or accidental death of the owner or a family member than it is to be used to attack "miscreants".
Do you think this is true generally? "If it is established that ________ can save your person, there is no legitimate reason to broadly deny said ability."
Your scenarios show oversimplified black-and-white thinking. They also ignore the effects of guns on others. I also notice that your "scenario A" gives a big middle finger to the issue of firearm suicide.
I thought I had "raised complaint". I pointed out that to actually neutralize a threat to you with a gun when it becomes a life-and-death matter, you need extensive training and practice. The vast majority of gun owners simply don't have this training and expertise, and it's unrealistic to suggest that their carrying a gun has anything to do with actually neutralizing such a threat.
I'm not sure why we'd consider someone who's carrying around a gun and brandishing at people "peaceful". Regardless, which of your other rights do you think should be forfeit if your neighbours fear you enough?
The founders didn't mean "every able-bodied man"; they meant every able-bodied white man. This point was important in one of the reasons the Second Amendment was drafted in the first case: to placate the slave-holding states by reassuring them that abolitionists couldn't use the new federal government to take away the weapons that their militias used to put down slave revolts and hunt escaping slaves.