In the last 5 months there have been at least 71 kids killed by guns. Average just under 6 years old

[DanTex]

157. OK

When it comes to cars, there are obvious disadvantages which, to my mind, oughtweigh the benefits.

I'm not denying the harms, pollution, accidents, etc. But I don't think you can honestly argue that the harms outweigh the benefits. Maybe in the future society won't be so dependent on cars, but at present, it would simply collapse without them. I'm in favor if a carbon tax, fuel emission standards, and so on. But none of that changes the fact that cars are essential to our world.

Guns are designed to solve a specific problem as well. Can you guess what it is? Killing (mostly) people. That's because there times in the course of human events when somebody for a multitude of reasons may want to do great harm to another, and the only way we can stop them is to kill them before they kill us. I know, it's sad and tragic, but it happens. Now if you really cared about "gun violence" you would produce a solution for the problem they are designed to solve. You can do that can't you? It's a tough one, I'll admit. There is no room for error. We aren't risking your solution making someone late for an appointment. Whatever you produce has to work as well as a gun because this is life or death in the blink of an eye. So what have you got?

It is very difficult to deny that reducing gun availability would reduce the amount of murder and suicide. Guns make killing easier. If you make things harder, they happen less often. Most murders, at least in the US, are not committed by people that are hell-bent on killing. They are the result of escalating arguments or other crimes (e.g. robberies) that get out of control. In both of these scenarios the presence of a gun greatly increases the chance someone will be killed. Also, for suicides, most suicidal impulses are short-lived and having a gun around often means the difference between a completed suicide and survived suicide attempt, or a suicidal impulse that is not acted upon. For some reason you don't like studies (although you don't seem to have a problem with climate science, thankfully), but what I'm saying is backed by research.

Or do you prefer to cite a boatload of sexy sounding survey studies that simply mean you don't mind shooting craps with other people's lives by telling them that their chances are better without a gun than with one? Why don't you write some legislation titled "The Act to Hopefully, Maybe, Possibly Make Killers Somewhat Less Efficient". Yeah, that'll go over well come election day. But all those footnotes look great out on the catwalk when you are telling people just what they want to hear. It's a real show isn't it, strutting out your depth of understanding without having to connect it to any specific real world problem? Oh, baby, it looks good. You're just too sexy for our party.

The anti-intellectualism here doesn't really help your argument. Guns take more lives than they save. By a substantial factor. On top of this is the fact that none of the proposed gun control laws, including things like universal handgun registration which is not even on the table, would do nothing to prevent self-defense gun scenarios.

I do agree that politically, gun control is a tough sell in America. But I'm talking about cost and benefits, not about politics. Reducing carbon emissions is also politically a tough sell, for the same reasons that you use to mock the case for gun control. The benefits -- preventing climate change and reducing gun violence, can seem abstract, diffuse, and uncertain. The hope is that there are enough people that are capable of being rational about these issues. Given the state of politics and ignorance in the US, that might be too much to ask.