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This weekend, I visited my friendly local gun store, idly browsing for shotguns and learning about interstate purchases. Then I drove to my parents and spent the evening playing board games. It was a nice night with good food, drink and company.
Meanwhile, five minutes up the highway, some lunatic was murdering random strangers at a local shopping mall.
No one I know was killed. No one I know personally was present—though a friend of a friend was. I didn’t hear about it until the next morning. Big nothingburger, right? And yet I’ve been to that mall. I’ve been to the bar across the street with my coworkers. If I’d had an errand or three to run, instead of visiting my family, I might have been cowering in a storeroom or staring at a splatter of brains on the sidewalk.
I’m not linking to any articles. Partly for the thinnest veneer of opsec, partly because media coverage is predictably terrible. All sympathetic pictures and, as we’d say here, recruiting for a cause. Nothing good will come of this. Either we’ll force through a knee-jerk bill with symbolic limits on firearms, or we’ll (correctly) dismiss that as posturing and (incorrectly) do abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
It’s not like I can do anything about it. I don’t know what I would actually expect to work, and if I did, how could it be brought about? State, even local politics is as tribal as it gets. Enjoy your a la carte selection of two options, and one of them is out of stock.
Meanwhile, I guess the best I can do is pick up some CCW training and a good holster. Fuck.
because nothing at all is gained doing this and a particular beachhead is lost to people who regularly lie, cheat, and steal to get what they want including crafting a statement about only "gun homicides" in order to frame the discourse in such a way as to serve that agenda
civilian disarmament proponents won't even admit they're civilian disarmament proponents, but gun rights advocates should play honesty-bot which aided in the loss of many gun rights over the last 100 years
additionally, why should I anyone care if only gun homicides go up and down? ceteris paribus is only true in hypotheticals, a person killed by knife or car is still dead even if they weren't shot, defensive use does reduce future crime, and the avoidance of "gun death" is not the only thing which matters in life
gun rights advocates don't admit it because it's a loss for nothing gained and it's intentionally framing the question to serve the gungrabber agenda
no, civilian disarmament is stupid because it forces people to be helpless in the face of violence making the individual less able to defend themselves and what they value
I prefer far flatter variance in violence projection ability for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I find it disgusting that one would use violence against an individual for mere possession of the ability to defend themselves and force them to be at the mercy of someone who is simply stronger.
Which is why disarmed countries are so much more violent? No, they are less.
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