Fogdog
Well-Known Member
So, your argument is I must prove a negative. I must prove that guns prevented something. How would one go about doing that?Read the NRA’s Armed Citizen column.
One of the fundamental weaknesses of your premise is there is no counting the number of violent incidents prevented by the use of civilly-owned firearms.
Your implication runs aground on this rock.
This is why I've stopped debating your kind. I've given up on the idea that gun nuts like you will ever accept the need to reduce gun deaths and injuries in this country. You've just established that there is nothing that will convince you and you've put up an impossible task as smoke screen.
So, here's the situation that you face. Gun ownership is on the decline in this country.
This is mostly due to the decline in hunting in the US. Ownership went from 47% of all households in 1973 to 31% in 2014.
At this time, about 31% of families have a gun in their household. A super majority -- 69% don't own guns. A while ago, most people, even those who didn't own a gun opposed tighter regulations but that has changed. The political reality that you face is, public acceptance of the practically unlimited right to own and carry a gun has declined and now more than half say they favor tighter gun regulations. With declines in gun ownership, comes less acceptance of the problems that guns cause. Time is against you. Eventually a super majority will overwhelm your lobby and we will write the laws as we see fit. Do you not see the logic behind this?
I'm not debating you. I'm saying quite clearly that if the gun industry and gun owners don't take ownership for driving those death statistics down, then a super majority of non-gun owners will do it for you. An amendment to the constitution is not out of the question, if that becomes necessary. However, I don't think it will come to that. I think we can come up with legally acceptable solutions and I'm not saying we need to take guns away from people who can follow sane gun regulations.