[BobbyJo]

And with all of those laws and regulation, still 1000 kids a year die. So, again, why are we choosing cars over kids lives?

Well, we aren't. We are applying cost benefit analysis, which is subjective. Society agrees pretty uniformly that motor vehicles are worth the risk. It's the same with guns, there just isn't as much of a consensus. Some people thing the risk is worth it, others don't.

If you frame it as a binary right and wrong based on your own risk tolerance rather than making genuine arguments for certain trade offs you aren't having a good faith conversation, which is what I was satirizing.

[longbrass]

I agree, further to this line of thinking I’m not really seeing how widespread adoption of arms by the general public has as many benefits as private vehicle ownership. Apart from environmental externalities, we know the cost for one is higher in terms of strict mortality… to that end shouldn’t the social utility of fire arms be higher? I can use my car to get my kids to school at least.

Perhaps we go in on a startup to modify the AR platform to distribute COVID tests or vaccines?

[BobbyJo]

> I’m not really seeing how widespread adoption of arms by the general public has as many benefits as private vehicle ownership.

If you listen to gun fanatics, the benefits of widespread arms ownership is a government scared to overstep. How much that is worth to you depends on how much you worry about the government infringing on your rights, and how much you think guns being around prevent that.

I personally subscribe to that ideology to a degree (not full tilt, but somewhat). The US has the oldest constitution, and that's arguably only possible if the federal government hasn't pissed us all off too much :P