Firearms: - A tool which can be used for a varierty of purposes - Must be purchased, i.e. it is a choice. - I suppose one could compare firearms training/use to martial arts, in that it can have personal benefits, but at the same time it's original purpose and base function is to defend oneself from, or (with guns) attack and kill another person.
So why are we comparing these two things again?
I am for anyone owning a firearm being educated. I don't own a gun and enjoy knowing a bit about them. I am also for a reasonable degree of gun control, and for acknowledging the fact that the U.S. appears to be unique in terms of the frequency of mass shootings, and of taking action (increasing the availability of mental health clinics, finding ways to restrict mentally ill people from owning firearms which does not violate the second amendment, etc) to do something about this.
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And no firearms (unless carried by an officer) in schools, on campuses, or in places of worship.
I feel like you've abstracted one level too far. We're not comparing sex and firearms in a concrete sense; we're comparing one type of education as an appropriate way to mitigate the potentially damaging effects that being untrained causes, and another type of education as an appropriate way to mitigate the potential damages of being untrained.
As it stands, it's no worse or less than the nauseatingly constant comparison between firearms and automobiles, when the more apt comparison (in my opinion) is comparing firearms rights vs. voting rights.
Arbitrary rules. In that case, no guns allowed in grocery stores, zoos, museums, public places of gathering, anywhere where one might find humans.
"And no firearms (unless carried by an officer) in schools, on campuses, or in places of worship."
Why? It's legal in my state (KS) and there have been no shootings.
Goddard, Kansas
Armed with a rifle and a handgun, 14-year-old James Alan Kearbey, killed principal, James McGee, and wounded two teachers and a student at Goddard Junior High School.
Yes! This is a great point, that hadn't occurred to me before.
The current proliferation of firearms in the US makes education the responsible choice. If nothing else, you should know how to render a firearm safe.
Abstinence only education is mandatory gun ownership and then refusing to provide any guidance beyond "don't shoot people".
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...
You think you know someone's ultimate, real goal? Assuming that they didn't publicize that goal - how do you know it? Are you privy to their confidential discussions, was an internal whitepaper of theirs leaked?
Yes, I always get steamed when someone tries to impute motives to some other actor. But I'm not resorting to such here. I know it because the head of the organization (a while back, when it was named NCCH) said so:
The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition – except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors – totally illegal.
Support of this claim, and mention of other organizations that make an explicit goal of bans, here: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/07/24/david-kopel/one-mans...
I generally hear two perspectives from people:
1. the view that people should be allowed to buy guns after background checks and mandatory training.
2. the view that no checks or restrictions should be put on guns at all.
I haven't heard very many other proposals.
See my nearby citation of the guy who was heading the organization that later became the Brady Campaign:
"The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition – except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors – totally illegal."
"In November 2008, Brady president Helmke, a former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, endorsed the American Hunters and Shooters Association saying, 'I see our issues as complementary to theirs.' He said, 'The Brady Campaign is not just East Coast liberal Democrats.'"
Most people who want to see more gun control are not out to ban all guns. Many of them own guns.
Or is it more complicated than "abstinence"?
(I'd argue that it is. There is no biological drive to own a gun, just a socially constructed one. It's a different category of activity.)
Put differently, "natural predisposition to protecting self and family => self defense OK" is not the same proposition as "natural predisposition to protecting self and family => guns OK". There's an extra step in the latter, "self defense OK => guns OK" (which I was not making an explicit evaluation on). The analogy in the GP is a false equivalence.
I'm not going to argue that a gun is the only or even necessarily an appreciable way to advance this in most individuals, but for many people it likely does work into this biological need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#...
In some societies, such as the US, the biological need for security is met by the socially acceptable practice of gun ownership.
In other societies, it is not socially acceptable to meet that biological need with the practice of gun ownership.
This was accepted and understood at the time the Constitution was penned.
Also, it's not like governments use those weapons responsibly, even though they have the "right" to own them...
The word you are looking for is "awesome"
When I was a kid, I definitely thought that guns were 'cool', in some sense. I thought about them, I read about them, and I desired access to them. As I grew up and came to understand that (in the general case, and certainly for hand guns and the stuff mentioned above) guns are tools designed to end human lives, it became very hard for me to see them as anything more than a tragic symbol of human littleness.
What does 'awesome' mean, to you? Does it mean that they are symbols of power? Something else?
And not just any combat. The strong and numerous attackers don't really need better tools for hurting the small, lone, and weak; they can do that just fine already. Guns are for the weak to defend themselves against the strong. They let the little old lady stop multiple attackers. They let the lone rebel fight back against the oppressive government. The gun is civilization and democracy.
That's a far cry from ending human life. It's sustaining human life and culture. Speaking of culture, how dare you judge mine so harshly from yours?
It's the same feeling you get when you watch explosions on MythBusters and such. Do explosions kill people? Yes. But they're pretty damn awesome when they don't.
...not to mention illegal
Here is a class I took on the MP5: