[fasa99]

What puts me off about the argument is along the lines of "and because of such and such, now numerically less guns exist in public, and that's -a good thing-"

For me this smacks of California style government i.e. "we've made gas and energy so expensive that people use less energy, and environmentally that's -a good thing-" or "we've made permit regulations so bad nobody is able to build anything anymore and environmentally that's -a good thing-"

The crux of these things is that if you presume that these are basic rights: not having property confiscating, building a house without too much red tape, free market energy economy - then we have arrived at -a good thing- via -an unethical thing- and thus it's a good outcome through an unethical means, or "fruit from the poison tree" as ethics states.

From a legal perspective, these are trying to avoid a completely hypothetical scenario of Peter's hypothetical gun hypothetically shooting Paul, or Peter's hypothetical +20% pollution hurting the life of Paul, and George got jammed up by the law and hates it, but the lawmaker who is worried solely about Paul is quite pleased with himself about having saved Paul from the hypothetical which may or may not have actually happened.

[ruthmarx]

> The crux of these things is that if you presume that these are basic rights:

That's the problem though, isn't it? Less guns should exist in public, and the 'right' the US has shouldn't have been extended as far as it has, so it needs to be choked and leashed.

Same with utilities...they might be a right, but the specific means of generation isn't necessarily a right, and maybe it shouldn't be.

[duped]

> What puts me off about the argument is along the lines of "and because of such and such, now numerically less guns exist in public, and that's -a good thing-"

I did not make that point, but I also don't understand yours.