Why do so many on DU seem to be against concealed carry?

[thucythucy]

164. Good for you. I'm glad we agree on all the things you listed.

As for global warming, ten, perhaps fifteen years from now we should know the definitive answer as to whether "the Malthusian, doomsday, religious mentality exhibited by many global warming adherents" (and I'd love to see some examples) was right all along. I suspect that within our lifetimes those who are currently denying the reality and the severity of the crisis will be regarded in ways similar to all those folks who denied that cigarettes cause cancer. I'm old enough to remember how talking head doctors (mostly paid off by the Tobacco Institute) would tell us "the evidence is contradictory" and "there is no scientific consensus"--while smokers I knew would cite their aged uncle who'd smoked all his life and lived to be eighty as "proof" there was nothing to the Surgeon General's report. But we shall see.

I'm sorry to hear about your personal experience with guns, whatever that might have been. I've had several experiences, not directly personal, but close enough. My partner's grandfather was shot in the back by a hunter who mistook him for a deer. A woman I know (fiancee of a good friend) was shot in the throat while driving in her car, and bled to death before the EMTs could arrive. Not much she could have done about that, even if she'd been armed. And as a former rape crisis counselor, I encountered people who had been raped at gunpoint. Without getting into details, there's absolutely nothing a concealed weapon would have done to help. All that would have happened is the rapist would have taken the weapon from them, putting more illicit guns into circulation.

So we all have our reasons for taking the stands we take do. We'll just have to agree to disagree, and hope, for all our sakes, that the best policy alternatives take the day.

Best wishes.