Re:Why Can't I Take an Orange Through Customs?
by EdwardCoffin on Thursday November 20, 2014 @11:25AM
(#8636484)
This specific example is surely meant to represent the wider range of accidents involving guns and children [1], and through that the yet more general issue of gun safety overall.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-h..., for instance
Re:Why Can't I Take an Orange Through Customs?
by davidw on Thursday November 20, 2014 @11:04AM
(#8636352)
> It's far more important to ask why people are violent than with what tool they perpetrate that violence.
Well the former question is certainly a good one. Maybe you're right that it's the most important one.
However, tools matter too - a gun is a way more efficient way of killing a lot of people quickly than a knife is. Both are far more lethal than Kinder Surprise eggs.
Re:Why Can't I Take an Orange Through Customs?
by EdwardCoffin on Thursday November 20, 2014 @11:30AM
(#8636511)
Further to the _more efficient way_ point, they're also far quicker, so a very brief murderous impulse has more chance of being followed through with.
It's an extremely narrow, decontextualized view of the situation. It's far more important to ask why people are violent than with what tool they perpetrate that violence. I would say our issue is not guns, it's our "War on Drugs" and our relative proximity to all of those nearly-failed-states in Central- and South America that rank higher than us in those categories that are the center for production of those drugs, and the cartels that control them.