Originally Posted by
dodint
Sure. But when a proper analogy is made (cars, bikes, etc) that's shouted down as absurd as well. So what can I do? Guns hold a unique place in our society, that's plain to see and most analogies fail. An intellectual annoyance of mine is that firearms impact is exaggerated by influencers, for lack of a better word, out of a dislike for a culture they do not partake in or to use to advance their own agenda. That's a commentary on the national discourse and not directed at anyone specific.
The Parkinson's comparison was simply an illustration of scale, they happened to have the same death rate of 0.7% of the population.
Here's another way of looking at it. Jason (and others) wants to use an isolated incident from six years ago (Sandy Hook) to kill the firearms industry, a $31.8 billion industry in the United States. That's $31.8B worth of economic force in the form of jobs, safety, recreation, sustenance procurement, etc. Saying that the industry should go away because a very, very small number of people occasionally misuse or abuse the end product is incredibly near-sighted. It's absurd in the same way banning cars is absurd, the utility far outweighs the the tragic but statistically insignificant bad outcomes.
This might be the only ongoing debate I engage in that is completely futile. Absolutists clashing with the Constitution was settled 10 years ago this week with Heller II. I wish we talked about something more compelling and impactful, like Fourth Amendment developments. But nobody gleefully runs to the message board when a police officer violates someone's curtilage before getting a warrant.