Do you have a real argument or is absurdly representing the opposition the entirety of your position?
Oh, I have a real argument, but you must have missed my comment a while back about me no longer taking this place seriously as almost no one here engages in good faith anyways. Why should I put in any actual effort when this place has become so polarized that almost no one actually will take seriously the arguments against their own position?
Technology has moved us past the point of gun control working without requiring massive privacy violations, which I hinted at in the OP and you decided to ignore.
Even if gun control would have worked in the US (which is already doubtful), any policy you could possibly implement will become worthless in the next decade or two. I have guns that are almost entirely 3D printed with the exception being parts I can buy at the hardware store. It isn't that hard to make bullets that are still lethal with a 3D printer + hardware store parts and this will only be easier within the next decade or so. Making your own powder is also really easy. Shells are more difficult, but there are already groups looking at how it could be done and within the next decade or two of advances in 3D printing technology then this will be easy. Etc. Any part you wish to ban will soon be able to be made at home easily, any type of gun you wish to ban will soon be printable, etc. How will you address this without huge privacy violations? How will you monitor private sales, especially with these guns, without huge privacy violations (if you can't, how will you enforce laws around private sales)? Etc. Even if this bans would have worked before, they won't now.
Combine that with the number of defensive uses of guns used each year (average between the estimated highest and lowest point is 1.2 million) compared to hospitalizations due to guns in general (between 500,000 to 600,000), both of these numbers having been on the CDC website, and it is clear that guns are used defensively more often than they hurt people. With the advancement of technology basically making it so that within the next decade or so any gun ban or gun control measure will become pointless, those that wish to do harm will still have easy access to a gun while that that would use a gun defensively will have a harder time gaining access or having one on them to use defensively.
This doesn't even address the poor border control we have in comparison to the usual examples of gun control/bans working (UK, Australia, etc.), doesn't address the benefits of an armed populace, how useless the police are when it comes to protecting people, etc.
The reality is that the issues that need to be fixed have nothing to do with guns, any gun ban or gun control policy you implement won't work in the long term, and with the gun culture being what it is it would take too long for it to have any real impact in the short term either (which means they are all pointless at this point). If you put your focus on implementing gun control or gun bans then, due to advancing technology, you must also sacrifice privacy of the individual on some an extreme measure. Otherwise you are ignoring the realities of where we are and will be technologically.
I could go on and on, but it is pretty much pointless. I put in the effort to make this comment and guess what, no one that is an advocate for gun control/bans here will really give a shit anyways. Sure, some people that are on my side might give me that 'thumbs up' or even expand on the point, but the effort here is wasted. Even those that are on the 'other side' as me that seem to engage now will, in the next month or so, end up having completely reverted to the point they were at before this comment was made, regardless on whether they are able to address the points I brought up. In fact, they will continue making the same exact points without any real change in their rhetoric in the not so distant future. This is clear to see when it comes to basically every single issue that ever gets debated on this website. Look at people's comment histories and it will become clear.
You want me to engage with this level of effort at a minimum, but why bother when it will serve no purpose? People here have grown too polarized, too stubborn, etc., especially compared to DDO when you and I were active on it. Effort is now wasted, and so instead I put a few legitimate points in my trolling. Some people have noticed that I have done precisely this and been able to read between the lines (I know because I have serious discussions through messages with people), others don't. If you fall on the former then it increases the odds that you are worth the effort to talk with, otherwise it typically shows that the person is just another one that effort would be wasted upon.
