My view is if we can’t even stop mass shootings with assault weapons we have zero chance at reducing the homicide rate.
This view is false. A counterexample:
First, the number of mass shootings did go down after the ban and rose dramatically after the ban expired.
Second, it wasn’t a true ban. People could still buy, sell, and own assault weapons. The ban simply prohibited adding new assault weapons to the country.
So would you do an AR 15 confiscation?
Want to end school shootings? Install airport style security around every school.
That’s dumb. That sounds a lot like “Door Reform”
You believe all right wing arguments are dumb, so I'll ignore the insult.
What is, "Door Reform"?
Assault weapons owned by ordinary citizens offers ZERO benefits to society, but the drawbacks are huge.
P1: Society is made up of individual citizens.
C1: Anything that benefits Citizens also benefits society.
P2: People only buy things that benefit them.
P3: People buy AR 15s.
C2: Therefore AR 15s benefit individual Citizens.
C3: Therefore, AR 15s benefit society.
The drawbacks are small (less than .0001% of the US population dies in a mass shooting/year).
By the way, if that one life was yours or your children, I bet you would have a different opinion.
That is true, but I also am rational enough to understand that the odds of me being the victim of that crime are small enough to where I'm genuinely not worried. Life has risks; otherwise going to work would be banned and people would be forced to do remote work to prevent the spread of COVID when applicable (even in the year 2024). Life has risks that must be accepted and the only alternative is consistent, persistent, melodramatic, and unsatiable fear. Fear of mass shootings is a melodramatic fear due to it's rarity.
That is a silly argument to make.
How is this argument more silly than any other conservative argument (all of which you believe are silly)?
Is that what led to Hitler and Mussolini becoming tyrants?
Hitler's argument for killing the Jews was, "By killing the Jews, I am only doing the Lord's work", which was:
P1: I believe Jews have the wrong religion.
P2: Jews have kids.
P3: Anyone with the wrong religion goes to hell.
C1: Jewish kids are going to hell through no fault of their own, but merely the fault of their parents.
Given that hell is an eternity of torment and execution is a small punishment by comparison, it is how Hitler was able to justify the Holocaust, "Save the children" (from a worse eternity in hell, or at least a more torturous version of hell because by killing them now, we prevent them from sinning more and inievitbly getting a worse punishment in hell).
You are obviously consuming media designed to cause fear by warning you of nonsensical conspiracy theories.
Who is more afraid of the .00001% chance or so that they will die from a mass shooting? You or me? I'll wait.
Always? Give me three examples from history
I can think of 2 broad examples:
- Extreme right wing religious authoritarianism (save the children from hell because we believe their parent's religion will send them to hell, so genocide the parents and kids before they sin any more so their punishment in hell will be less).
- Extreme left wing secular authoritarianism (save the children from even the slightest risk that they will die or be in pain so install fear into them about those with power (whether the rich, the NRA, etc) so they are more easily manipulated and even if we do more damage to them in the long run, but it's all for the common good).
I believe in the LUSHOOK ethos and individualism and I don't think my mind can realistically be changed on that.