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A simple argument against gun control.
For context here, they are playing chess.
I find this reasoning really interesting, because Mr.Terrific points out how selective much of the things that are being banned for killing people actually is.
Here are some other weapons that are banned or restricted in certain states in the US, and some countries:
Switchblades, butterfly knives are banned in places like the UK, and in some states like Minnesota & Massachusetts.
Brass Knuckles are banned in about 20 states, also in the UK and Canada.
The real issue I have with these bans and restrictions on guns, and even brass knuckles or knives, is that, the outrage seems to be selective. You can probably find pocket knives that'll do the job stabbing someone to death fairly easily, you could do it with a hunting knife or a kitchen knife. You could beat someone to death with a baseball bat, (or hell, you could make brass knuckles out of some nuts from Home Depot). And as stated, some of these kill far more people than other things, that are actually meant to harm, per the fbi, a kitchen knife has likely killed more people than brass knuckles have (for this, we'll say brass knuckles would probably fall into the "blunt objects" category). And as stated by Terrific, smoking kills far more than guns.
Perhaps the argument here is just to say: Look, bro, hunting knives - tobacco - cars, etc, aren't meant to kill people, so we aren't as interested in targeting them, but thats not personally how I judge (or others) would judge these situations. If I have a psychopath, who stabs someone to death with a kitchen knife vs one who does it with a switchblade. I'm not looking to judge them off the murder weapon in a trial. The dead person before me is what actually matters. Why should we care about the means of death? Its the ends that we are passing judgment for.
Issue with this type of argument is that it's rare to find people who are actually consistent. The US right now is bombing and killing accused drug traffickers by referring to them as terrorists. For what? For providing a substance that irresponsible people willingly choose to inject into themselves.
Guns at least have the excuse that the user can be killing others. Drug users are only killing themselves! Basically every single drug death are suicides by the irresponsible drug users, whether on purpose or on accident. People may feel shameful if their father or brother or daughter or whoever ends up as a druggie and ODs, but at least it was their fault unlike a murder. There's not many cases of someone being held down and injected with drugs against their will, that's not a thing that happens. Although if we wanted to go with that, the Sacklers could be hanged! Now that's the same thing with gun deaths, a pretty substantial portion of them are suicides too but again at least one could pretend that it's only about the murder tool aspect of them.
And what about lesser harms? Why should we not start rounding up Nestle and Coca Cola shareholders for victimizing poor Americans with obesity, because offering high sugar snacks and drinks is damaging their health. Why should we not be executing the corn and sugar farmers for mass crippling >100million Americans and damaging their health? In total cumulative damage, one could probably argue the sugar farmers and fast food and grocery stores have done more than the entire drug trafficking market just because of the overwhelming amount of people who are overweight now.
Tabacco in raw numbers kills more than 6.5x more Americans a year than fentanyl!
And at least some of those are from second hand smoke so even tobacco has a stronger argument for "it kills other people" then the drugs these traffickers we're calling terrorists often provide. Why not drone strike the tobacco companies and ban cigarettes then?
Marijuana of course is one of the best examples of this, being arguably safer than federally allowed products like tobacco and alcohol. I ain't ever hear of someone dying of marijuana poisoning like what can happen with an alcoholic!
One thing I’d point out is that marijuana can severely exacerbate latent schizophrenia and causes psychotic breaks in a small but relevant portion of the population. Several noteworthy recent murders in the UK have been the result of marijuana-induced schizophrenia.
In general drugs do impose severe externalities on others.
Even if it's directly causing the schizophrenia and not some kind of selection effect, is it still enough to be anywhere near equal the amount of harm that tobacco or alcohol causes?
I'm not sure how marijuana is supposed to be less harmful than alcohol? It's not like driving stoned is safer than driving drunk, and marijuana is also very bad for the teen brain.
I'd be astonished if it weren't.
All depends on the dose and your tolerance. i got high precisely once in my life and refuse to touch the stuff based on that experience. It would never occur to me to drive in the state I was in.
Alcohol, on the other hand, as long as you didn't drink too much, seems relatively safe. I think there was even a Mythbuster's episode when they were comparing it to driving while sleep deprived, and the latter can easily be more dangerous.
This is because of our MADD DUI thresholds. Get someone to 0.08 and maybe they're a little less alert and a little less cautious, but not really out of the range of sober drivers. Most fatal alcohol-involved collisions are at twice that, though.
The caricature of stoned drivers is they wait for the stop sign to turn green. Based on the drivers I've seen in cars stinking of weed (that I could smell from my own car), they drive very erratically but not fast. I wouldn't be surprised if their most common accident was just driving off the road with no or minor injuries, but I'm not aware of any studies.
In my experience, stoned drivers exercise what seems like a superabundance of caution because they feel like everything around them is happening too fast and they can't quite keep up. So they go very slowly; sit at stop signs a very long time to make sure no one is about to come. Check every direction five times, etc.
While it's not ideal, it occurs to me as closer to 'silly' than 'reckless'. Should be avoided either way ofc. But someone on weed, unlike someone on alcohol, doesn't wake up the next day to find dents they don't remember or a mailbox in their grille.
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