MikePA said:
Joseph Goebbels said this.
Yep, and we are being fed plenty of them today.
I wonder if there has ever been a problem where two different viewpoints, each hoping to solve the problem, have been so diametrically opposed.
One side's position is that "if only guns weren't available" these monstrous acts could not occur, therefore if we could eliminate "easy access" to guns, the problem would be solved. True enough. "If" we could do this, it might work.
But we can't. It is physically impossible to un-invent the gun. Even if you could somehow manage to round them all up, someone would still know how to make one, plus they could still be smuggled.
Plus, the people who propose this never mention how they would accomplish this goal. That is to be left to other people to figure out how to make the anointed ones' dreams come true. They have more important things to do with their superior intellect and morality than become bogged down in the intractable problems to trying to accomplish the impossible.
The other camp recognizes this limitation and seeks to deal with it in the best way possible. They understand fully that the 2nd amendment wasn't put in the Constitution to guarantee recreational hunting. They know that police cannot be everywhere and a response time can be anything from five minutes to a half hour and that in that time, the damage is done. This camp recognizes that with these boundary conditions, the most practical solution is for people to take a more active role in their own self-protection.
So, who do you throw in with? Those with lofty, pie-in-the-sky ideals but no hope of actually accomplishing anything or those who want to make the best of a bad situation and can actually have some effect on the problem?