Guns are useful for defending yourself from a home invasion

[Straw Man]

83. We can play scenario games all day and night ...

Last edited Thu Dec 10, 2015, 05:51 AM - Edit history (1)

... but the fact remains that armed self-defense is viable. Shotgun pellets and frangible ammo don't overpenetrate, so my neighbors would not be endangered. As for "dropping me outside my house," I imagine that would cause my neighbors to call the police, which is why it's not exactly a common home-invasion strategy.

Excuse me, but where did I say "accidental gun deaths"? I didn't. I said "Tens of thousands of people are accidentally' shot every year handling firearms..."

In 2013, non-fatal gunshots clocked in at 84,258 according to the CDC. Last I checked, 84,000 meets the criteria of "tens of thousands".

Thanks for the clarification, but your numbers are still off. You said "accidentally." The figure you cite includes all firearms injuries, including intentional ones like assaults, attempted murder, self-defense, police shootings, failed suicide attempts, etc. The actual number for unintentional (in other words, accidental) non-fatal shootings was 16,864. Pardon me, but the last time I checked, the plural "tens of thousands" requires at least two of those "tens" -- 20,000 or more, in total. You're still more than 3,000 short.

I absolutely agree, as do numerous laws, both state and federal.

And yet, we can't get laws passed to prohibit these people from owning firearms.

You missed my point: the laws exist. If it's an enforcement failure, you won't solve it with more laws. If you're talking about the "private sale loophole," perhaps it might pass if it were presented as a stand-alone, without the poison pill of "assault weapon" bans and the like.

The 1st and 4th-8th Amendments have all been either abridged or effectively nullified. We live in a de facto police state, which according to 2nd Amendment advocates, was what all the guns were supposed to prevent. However, the state has learned that it can strip us of all of our rights with little consequence by scaring the population with existential threats from non-white people, while letting us keep all the guns we want.

Given that all of my other rights are now abridged, I see no reason that the 2nd Amendment should enjoy an exemption, collections not withstanding.

We may be tending toward a police state, but if you believe that we live in one now, you don't really know what the term means. I've seen police practices in other ostensibly democratic countries that would make most Americans' blood run cold. Pardon me for saying so, but this sounds like sour-grapes petulance: "If I can't have what I want, why should they?" Because some rights are under threat, all rights should be surrendered? What kind of sense does that make?