[iforgotpassword]

Your first paragraph makes me realize how messed up reality appears to be. A mass shooting every now and then is the new normal. A worthy trade-off for being able to defend yourself and keep the government from issuing lockdowns.

If someone broke into my house the default assumption has to be that they're armed and I should fear for me an my family's lives. So I better be armed myself, and better armed then the burglars. Just don't accidentally shoot a family member that you mistake for the home invader in the heat of the moment. But that would never happen to you anyways, only to other, stupid and irresponsible people - who pretty much then deserve to live with the consequences. Compare that to any European country, where burglars always wait until nobody is home, and even if that goes wrong you at least don't have to fear for anyone's life as they'll either beat it immediately or you calmly hand over your cash and be happy you're alive and well.

[zmgsabst]

This is an incredibly bad faith response which creates strawmen I never said.

You’re welcome not to own a gun if you feel like that would be a better choice for you and/or your family. Nobody is making you.

What I’m saying is that you don’t have a right to take guns away from other people because you find them scary — even if that is occasionally abused, leading to tragedy. People have a right to defend themselves.

> A worthy trade-off for being able to defend yourself and keep the government from issuing lockdowns.

Over 100,000,000 people died to democide in the past century — around 70 times the current US murder rate for 100 years. (That is, 7000 years of the current US murder-with-guns rate.)

Guns also protected Black Panthers, Afghani insurrectionists, and Ukrainian militias.

I’m sorry that the world isn’t as friendly and happy as you would prefer it — I find that disquieting too.

[iforgotpassword]

> which creates strawmen I never said.

Yes you did, and you even repeat it in your reply.

> You’re welcome not to own a gun if you feel like that would be a better choice for you and/or your family. Nobody is making you.

Yes, they are pretty much making you in parts of the US, because things are so bad.

> What I’m saying is that you don’t have a right to take guns away from other people because you find them scary.

Not just because "I find them scary", but because they are literally dangerous. They are made to kill. That's their only purpose.

And yes, you absolutely have the right to take them away from people - just like you have the right to declare certain substances illegal to sell, consume or own, and limit people's freedom in a dozen other ways for the sake of society's well being as a whole.

> even if that is occasionally abused, leading to tragedy.

So where's the straw man again?

> People have a right to defend themselves.

And we arrived at the knee jerk reaction. Taking the arms race as a given. Don't even question why things are that fucked up in the first place. Might have to fear for my life any time of the day, so better have a semi-automatic rifle at hand. It's just so very sad.

> Over 100,000,000 people died to democide in the past century

In the US? Or Europe? Or might it have been in some really unstable chaotic parts of the world? Why you would even want to compare this to a civilized first world country is beyond me. A more reasonable approach would be comparisons with countries that are socially and structurally similar to the US but have different gun control laws, but that comparison wouldn't really fly with your views I guess.

> I’m sorry that the world isn’t as friendly and happy as you would prefer it — I find that disquieting too.

It doesn't seem you want it to be.

[mrep]

Not OP but

> Yes, they are pretty much making you in parts of the US, because things are so bad.

Where cause I live in that scary city called Chicago that people like to mention and have never felt the need to have a gun. We do have a lot of shootings but we also have a lot of people. If our metro area was a country, we'd be more populous than >50% of all countries (139/235).

> Not just because "I find them scary", but because they are literally dangerous. They are made to kill. That's their only purpose.

Or you know, sport. I find shooting clay pigeons or just general target practice to be fun.

[xigoi]

Nobody is trying to outlaw the usage of guns for sport.

[mrep]

What? I'm not allowed to own many types of guns here in Chicago regardless of use: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/chicago/latest/chicago...

[multjoy]

Speaking of rights, what happened to "well regulated"? There seems a lot of interest in "Shall not be", but far less the further into the paragraph you go.