angrymnk wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I'm not wrong though. The primary objective of the gun control "side" is to reduce the number of privately owned firearms in the country. Period. That's their objective. It's not like they're keeping this secret.
Yep. Give an inch.. on the radio I heard the term baby steps and next stop ban. The moment that realization hit me, I decided I am ok with mildly crazy level of gun freedom.
And at the risk of cross thread shenanigans, it's kinda similar to my "where's the bounds?" argument. If I thought for a moment that there would be a point of gun control that would satisfy the gun control activists, a point where they'd say "yeah, this is enough", I'd be perfectly on board. Heck. I'm on board with "reasonable" gun control as it is. I have no issue with banning privately owned fully automatic weapons. I have no problem with banning privately owned nuclear weapons, or chemical weapons, or hand grenades, bombs, Apache helicopters, hellfire missiles, and a host of other silly strawman arguing points that folks bring up. But that's the problem. We all agree on those things, but while I say "those are reasonable things to not allow folks to have" and thus agree that they should be banned, how often do we hear the argument that if you're not for <insert new gun control proposal here> it's the same as arguing that people should be able to own those things on the list above?
All the time, right? But, as I've mentioned many times before, this is not just a difference of position, but a difference of viewpoint on positions entirely. Some people view all social issues as directional. They push in a direction, no matter what. And they assume the "other side" is doing the same, just in the opposite direction. Others view social issues as positional. They look for what they think is a reasonable position on an issue and want to camp out there. They also, since this is human nature at work, tend to assume that the "other side" is positional too, and are constantly surprised when, having compromised on a position, find that they're just facing a demand for something farther in that "direction".
It's not wrong to be aware of this fact and account for it. So yeah, I'm fine with "reasonable" gun control. The problem is that I think we passed "reasonable" a long time ago, and have gone well into "ridiculous and counter productive". And by counter productive, I'm specifically pointing at the whole "gun free zones", which have quite clearly turned into "target rich zones" instead. We basically created the spree shooting trend over the last 20 years by doing this.
Seems pretty "reasonable" to reverse that. Again, what's the worse that could happen? We go back to the conditions prior to the passage of that act, when these kinds of shootings were so rare that it wasn't even on our radar? OMG! That would be such a disaster! Oh no. It wouldn't. Too many people are blindly following a cause and not really paying attention to the cost along the way. They see their "perfect world" where no one owns a firearm, and are willing to pay any cost to get there. Well, that "cost" is the lives of those school kids.
I don't think that's a cost worth paying. Do you?