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by king_magic 2473 days ago
So: “well, let’s just give up on preventing mass gun violence because it costs a money”?

No, mine is really not a disingenuous argument. It’s the same thing: you’re saying it costs money to prevent a small fraction of society being horrible maimed or killed with guns. Same for airplanes. Please explain why it it better for society to minimize low-probability deaths in plane crashes at extremely high cost, but not mass gun violence?

But back to the constitutional argument: no constitutionally recognized rights in the US are unlimited. In this case, yup, I’m completely in favor of curtailing gun rights in a limited fashion if it helps prevent this insanity. If that is a problem for you, go ahead and build a coalition to out-vote my broadly held position. You’re entitled to that.

1 comments

Not cost as in money, cost as in depriving people of the freedom to own useful tools. Also, again, what’s with the appeal to emotion? “Sad?” Such words have no place in this debate. Cost-benefit analysis is how you should decide whether to spend other peoples’ money to do anything.

As to the constitutional point: the second amendment is not up for a vote. While gun rights aren’t “unlimited,” the second amendment must be interpreted consistent with the right of people to effectively resist government agents, and that means stuff like assault weapons bans are not constitutional. If you think those rights are misguided in the modern world, fine, gather up a coalition that can amend the constitution. You might find that difficult, because contrary to what you might think, belief in gun rights is the strongest it has been in half a century: https://images.app.goo.gl/9HJwcRLRrdxepDnUA. Even young adults are more pro-gun rights than the same cohort was when the first assault weapons ban was enacted in the 1990s: https://images.app.goo.gl/Vyc2UduAa9Mqehc68. In 1990, 2/3 of young adults said gun control was more important than gun rights, versus 1/3 saying gun rights were more important. Today, it is evenly split.

There is very broad support for a judicial process to take away people’s guns if they pose a threat as well. If you think that is misguided, I invite you to do the exact same thing.