A good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun.

[Lemon Drop]

pdq wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
[quote=pdq]
Somehow it just occurs to me now that another, perhaps preferable way to stop a bad guy with gun is to take away his gun or make sure he can’t just go to the gun shop and buy one.

Three fewer lives lost.

Yep, that's the theory behind gun responsibility laws.
I’m one of those communists who are beyond that. Apart from hunting, why do we need guns? The real answer these days, it seems to me, it to protect ourselves from other people with guns.

…which suggests an alternate solution to me.
Not even remotely realistic in our society. For people like me who have successfully advocated for gun responsibility laws over the past few decades, the approach has to be on keeping guns away from people who have shown they should not have them. And on preventing accidents through education and mandatory safety measures. Most gun owners go along with that stuff.

[DeusxMac]

pdq wrote:
Apart from hunting, why do we need guns? The real answer these days, it seems to me, it to protect ourselves from other people with guns.

The proverbial Vicious Circle; I have a gun because he has a gun because I have a gun because he has a gun...

As well as a Self-fulfilling prophecy; I need to use a gun because more people are using guns.

[davester]

DeusxMac wrote:
[quote=pdq]
Apart from hunting, why do we need guns? The real answer these days, it seems to me, it to protect ourselves from other people with guns.

The proverbial Vicious Circle; I have a gun because he has a gun because I have a gun because he has a gun...

As well as a Self-fulfilling prophecy; I need to use a gun because more people are using guns.
Exactly. This mega gun nut thing was not a thing when I was younger (i.e. 20-30 years ago). It's been magnified a thousand fold over the last couple of decades. We can change it over the next couple of decades if we just work on crushing the NRA/gun lobby and going after lawmakers who enable them. The rest of the world doesn't have this gun sickness and our country didn't used to have this gun sickness so we should be able to move in their direction.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

hal wrote:
If we had just a few more good guys with guns, this could have been avoided. It's time the gov't took this gun violence thing seriously and give everyone more guns! It's the only way to be sure...

Actually, the only way to be sure is to take off and nuke the site from orbit.