Guns, Carried Openly or Concealed, Threaten Our Safety

[iverglas]

86. Huh

And I know two people personally who have been killed by firearm.

And I only know two people who own firearms.

Yet we do not restrict people who 'may' become drunk drivers.

Yeah, but you know what we do?

We have police on the roads looking for drunk drivers. We have roadside spot checks. We have other oversights that are good for detecting drunk drivers: radar for speeding, for instance. We have massive public education campaigns.

If the driver survived they seem to get out of jail in 3-7 years. Had a gun been used, how long?

What, like if somebody was target shooting and a bullet went into a house and killed a kid? I dunno. How long?

Construct your analogy and let me know.

If fact even if you kill a person with a car, you can take a class and get your license back in a rather short time.

Maybe where you live. Sentences may sometimes not seem adequate where I live, but that just sounds ludicrous.

Yet we do not restrict people who 'may' become drunk drivers.

I'm not talking about restricting anybody. I'm talking about prohibiting the carrying of firearms in public.

And where I'm at, and in other smart jurisdictions, we do "restrict" some classes of drivers likely to become drunk drivers -- specifically, young and new drivers. Seriously restrict. Zero blood alcohol. Limits on times of day and nature of passengers. For a couple of years, I think. Interesting, eh? More measures to provide for effective oversight.

My point is if we are to restrict something based on what may happen, would not restricting drivers (in order to get to work and earn the money to support their families ... necessary shopping, all other trips must be approved my the local manager of transportation safety) have a greater a greater benefit than restricting gun owners?

Feel free to put together an argument to that effect. Seems danged silly to me, but there you go.

In a society organized around the motor vehicle, motor vehicles, and driving motor vehicles on the public highways, are essential to many people's lives. The actual rate of death and injury, when the number of miles driven / number of vehicles a person is in proximity with are factored in, for instance, is minuscule.

You continue to go off topic here anyway. I have never claimed that people are widely endangered by a small fraction of the population having permission to wander around with firearms, and a fraction of them actually doing it at any gien time.

I'm saying that the risk is high enough to outweigh the zero benefit, and that worse than zero benefit, there are other types of harms that make the benefit negative.

The harm to the fabric of a society of some people wandering around with firearms in public, and other people having no choice but to have those people in their public spaces without even knowing who they are, is just plain unacceptable.

Or does it make sense to acknowledge what may happen and take steps to reduce that possibility of occurrence, placing trust in people who, as yet, have done nothing wrong?

This has fucking NOTHING to do with "trust". Nobody "trusts" a stranger to do anything. You don't trust the stranger on the corner to look after your baby for a couple of hours. You don't trust the stranger on the bus to housesit for you for a couple of weeks. You don't go down the street handing out your housekey to the first 10 people you encounter. Well why the hell not? Don't you trust them??

It has to do with risk management. And there is not the slightest reason in the world to CREATE a risk when there is no benefit generated and multiple harms caused even apart from the specific risks.