Man with towel wrapped arm who waved down police shot in head and hand cuffed

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**Psienesis**

NuggzTheNinja wrote:
insaniak wrote:
NuggzTheNinja wrote:

If people abide by the law, then why do you care at all whether or not they own firearms? Does it make you feel uncomfortable?

Well, yes. Insofar as it creates a culture whereby firearms are accepted as commonplace, and where people willfully ignore all of the reasons that having these things out amongst the general public is a bad idea because their 'right' to own them trumps all other considerations, absolutely that makes me uncomfortable.

To be more specific, the idea that my neighbour might have a firearm in his house doesn't make me uncomfortable. The idea of living somewhere where most of my neighbours have firearms in their houses and accept that as a trivial thing, leading to a massive number of accidental shootings, firearm related violence, and people being shot by police due to them having to work under the assumption that every car they pull over, every 12-year-old-boy on the street, and every domestic incident they attend might involve a firearm?

Damn straight, that makes me uncomfortable.

Accidental shootings like...cops shooting the wrong person? OK...train the cops better and stop hiring idiots (many departments have a 2.0 high school GPA minimum).

Accidental shootings like...people shooting themselves by accident? I don't know the numbers on this, but I extend the offer to you to prove that this occurs in "massive" numbers, since you claim that it does.

Firearm related violence? I'm assuming you mean, "of the criminal variety," so we aren't talking "law abiding citizens" anymore. Guns allow people like me to protect myself and others from people who commit firearm related violent crime.

I respect your right to feel uncomfortable about it, but ['merica]here in America[/'merica] we don't have the right to restrict the rights of others based on our comfort level. Some people aren't comfortable with Blacks and Whites marrying...should we make that illegal too?

Are you kidding? We restrict people's rights based on comfort level all the freakin' time! It took massive social unrest to decriminalize mixed-race marriages and extend basic civil rights to people freed from slavery a century prior. We're seeing the same thing going on with abortion rights, gay rights, same-sex marriage and a host of other issues. We *absolutely* legislate on people's comfort levels!

As far as "accidental shootings" go:

http://everytown.org/documents/2014/10/innocents-lost.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/25/death-child-unintentional-shooting/11324717/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf

... which posits that 851 people died due to accidental discharge of firearms in 2011 (the year of the report). Those numbers do not include suicides, assaults or other actions of a similar nature. Simply accidental shootings. A further 222 people died due to firearm discharge under "undetermined intent".

**Psienesis**

So you are pro-life, anti-gay rights, anti-same sex marriage, and anti-whatever else you can think of? I'm guessing the answer is no, because legislation based on feelings is absurd and people who espouse it should be treated like the idiots and bigots they are. This issue is no different.

Are you trying to debate me on the topic or just racing to the bottom? Do you have a point to counter my claim that our cities and states do not pass legislation based on the feelings of either those in power, or a section of the population that wields significant political and/or financial influence, regardless of whether or not they are a majority of the population in those areas?