This is an interesting view into the alternate reality of the anti-freedom advocates:
I once had an anti-gun person say to me “Would you be talking about how guns make us safer to somebody who had lost a child in a school shooting?”
I responded with “Would you tell somebody who defended themselves from a violent attack with a firearm that they really shouldn’t have guns?”
That second question is the inconvenient truth that they do anything they can to ignore. That was further shown when President Obama ordered the CDC to look at defensive gun use.
2. Defensive uses of guns are common:
“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”
You see, I WOULD find it very uncomfortable to tell somebody who lost a loved one to a shooting that we NEED more guns in society. But that’s the truth, we’re SAFER where gun laws are liberalized. If that wasn’t true, I probably wouldn’t be blogging at all. I understand that the 2nd Amendment is a human right, and rights are not dependent on safety or the actions of criminals. Still I came to my pro-gun beliefs as somebody who didn’t see rights as an absolute.
I used to be in favor of gun control because I thought it made us all safer. I thought that infringement was worth it. I later found that that first statement was wrong, and that only solidified the tyranny of the second statement, not the other way around.
Some may see it differently, and frankly, I don’t care because we’re on the same side. The people who AREN’T on our side don’t CARE about the absolute nature of rights, but they DO care about their individual safety, and the safety of their loved ones.
I can argue for both of those things with the greatest of ease, and I think we need to tailor our arguments to our audience. My audience is not the pro-gun people (tho I know you guys read, and I love you), and its not the anti-gun people (who I know read, and you disgust me), its the people who aren’t absolute about the principal of rights, but ARE concerned about their personal safety.
Supporting absolute rights is supporting personal safety. Those who argue against rights, such as the zealots who make, and distribute these images are involved enough in the cause to know this. They deny it anyway because dead children and dangerous streets are WORTH banning guns to them.
They are monsters!
