[wizzwizz4]

Even assuming the ridiculous premise, most paedophiles don't abuse children. (And not all child abusers are paedophiles, either, but that's getting into the really dark side of human psychology.) Support structures are important, as with all such things. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41213657

[lenkite]

Scratches head. I see, good to know that you agree that most (nearly all) gun owners don't shoot people. Actually, I suspect as a percentage lesser gun owners shoot people as compared to paedos abusing kids, but sadly I don't think I can get any sort of citation for that.

[wizzwizz4]

What I wrote doesn't imply that. I mean, I also believe that most gun owners don't shoot people, but that's certainly not implied by what I wrote (except in that both are probably-true statements).

Bringing paedophiles into the conversation in the first place was misdirection. And I resent your attempt to use my correction of an implication you introduced in doing so to support your argument.

Becoming suicidal is something that happens to a lot of people. Spontaneously gaining a shitty paraphilia is not. Spontaneously gaining a paraphilia and losing your morals is a completely fictional situation constructed purely to dodge a valid point; that's disingenuous arguing.

I can well believe that people going through a depressive episode, who are contemplating suicide, are more likely to commit suicide if they have easy access to a gun, above and beyond other potential weapons such as knives, blunt objects, water and high places. Guns take minimal planning, and don't involve overriding nearly as many instincts.

If you want to be right, instead of just winning an argument, focus on the weakest parts of your argument and the strongest parts of your opponents' arguments. You dodged from suicides to "shoot[ing] people" via a deft "think of the children", which is not arguing in good faith. You want to think yourself already right; you don't want to become right if you're not already.

[JChase2]

For me, protecting people from themselves should never be a policy priority. I have struggled with depression, probably still do, but I genuinely don't think the ideal solution to gun related deaths is to take away the right to own a gun. Even if it's effective. We're hitting a point where we are becoming capable of protecting people despite their own wishes due to technological advances, and we're going to have to make some decisions wrt how far we want to take it.

Personally, I'd rather err on the side of freedom than safety. There are alternatives available to us that don't infringe on freedoms so much, such as universal health care and increased treatment options for mental illness, which I think would be very much preferable. I think this argument extends to encryption such that encryption can be used for nefarious ends, just as guns can be used for nefarious ends. There are definitely parallels. How much freedom do we want to trade, how far do we want to take this thing?