2011-01-09, 11:59 PM
Anonymous Moose, I'm going to throw your logic back at you, solely because I'm curious as to your response.
Your entire claim for relaxed gun control laws is that "if ordinary, law-abiding citizens carried guns, which they don't have because they can't carry them, less crime would be committed due to criminal 'fear' and the ability for individuals to protect themselves." You back this statement up with the rhetoric that there is "no evidence" that supports the idea that stricter gun control laws make us safer.
So, here are my questions for you:
You see, the bottom line is that you did not provide solid, conclusive evidence supporting any of your claims, but merely the logic that "by owning guns, law-abiding citizens can protect themselves, which reduces crime." To essentially sum up a few of my aforementioned points, a simple counterargument would then be is it also not possible that the rate of crime could increase proportionally to the amount of law-abiding citizens owning guns? In other words, if every 18+ year old in the United States legally owned a gun, can you confidently tell me that crime rates would be lower than they are now?
Your entire claim for relaxed gun control laws is that "if ordinary, law-abiding citizens carried guns, which they don't have because they can't carry them, less crime would be committed due to criminal 'fear' and the ability for individuals to protect themselves." You back this statement up with the rhetoric that there is "no evidence" that supports the idea that stricter gun control laws make us safer.
So, here are my questions for you:
- Did you actually look up studies investigating the hypothetical world of stricter gun control, and what they concluded regarding public safety? I'm sure an issue as important as this has been researched extensively, and you didn't bother to provide one source backing up your claim, which leaves room for considerable suspicion of truth.
- To turn your logic back on you, where is the evidence that supports the conclusion that relaxed gun control laws make a safer society? You also did not provide this, which, again, does not do much for your claims.
- Finally, I ask you this: I looked up gun control laws in the United States, and discovered that the earliest age one can legally obtain a firearm is 18 (though not all until 21). That means that any college age student in the United States is legally able to own a gun and use it, we'll assume, as a measure of protection, when needed. Since that's the case, please tell me why every student in the massacred classroom at Virginia Tech during the school shooting a few years ago did not have a gun on their person to protect themselves. I suppose the logical answer would be school rules preventing bringing guns to class, which of course leads me to my follow-up question to you as to whether or not you believe college and university rules should be changed to allow students to bring loaded guns to class as a measure of protection. You know, "just in case."
You see, the bottom line is that you did not provide solid, conclusive evidence supporting any of your claims, but merely the logic that "by owning guns, law-abiding citizens can protect themselves, which reduces crime." To essentially sum up a few of my aforementioned points, a simple counterargument would then be is it also not possible that the rate of crime could increase proportionally to the amount of law-abiding citizens owning guns? In other words, if every 18+ year old in the United States legally owned a gun, can you confidently tell me that crime rates would be lower than they are now?