Jason Alexander (George Costanza on Seinfeld) wrote a long tweet after the Aurora, CO shootings advocating enhanced gun control:
Despite these massacres recurring and despite the 100,000 Americans that die every year due to domestic gun violence - these people see no value to even considering some kind of control as to what kinds of weapons are put in civilian hands.
I can't find any statistics that back up the claim that 100,000 Americans die every year due to domestic gun violence. I think he hurts his case by using somewhat exaggerated numbers, but we can surely all agree that even if the number is only tens of thousands instead of one hundred thousand, it is tragic. I may not agree with him on gun control, but I can appreciate where he is coming from even though I believe his views on this particular issue originate more from emotion than logic.
Later in the tweet he is critical of people for using specious arguments vis a vis gun control:
Then I get messages from seemingly decent and intelligent people who offer things like: @BrooklynAvi: Guns should only be banned if violent crimes committed with tomatoes means we should ban tomatoes. OR @nysportsguys1: Drunk drivers kill, should we ban fast cars?
I'm hoping that right after they hit send, they take a deep breath and realize that those arguments are completely specious. I believe tomatoes and cars have purposes other than killing.
First, he fails to recognize that guns have purposes other than killing, though I'll give him a pass on that. Second, the tomato argument was completely specious.
The car argument though is compelling. Even if no one ever drove drunk as @nysportsguys1 stated in his example, one can argue that no one needs to personally own a car that can travel in excess of 20 miles per hour. Law enforcement should certainly have fast cars and assault style weapons. If you personally want to get somewhere fast, you should use government owned and operated vehicles in the public transit system, where they can be monitored and controlled, which enhances public safety. More Americans die every year from automobile accidents than from guns. If it is a good idea to outlaw certain classes of firearms because they are too dangerous, then we should logically also outlaw certain classes of automobiles.
Now let's get back to the case of drunk drivers. Even though alcohol might have purposes other than poisoning ones mind and clouding ones judgement, a drunk driver isn't drinking for his health. So let's treat alcohol as a drug that is only available with a doctor's prescription. Between that and outlawing all cars that can move faster than 20 miles per hour, we could really cut back on the number of automobile fatalities every year.
Finally, smoking. I am not aware of any credible research that claims smoking tobacco has any health benefits that one couldn't get from the tobacco without smoking it, and definitely none that claims the benefits of smoking tobacco outweigh the documented risks. A CDC publication claims an estimated 443,000 people die from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke annually. One could argue that most of those deaths are self inflicted and thus not something that should be regulated. That would require one to allow firearm use for suicide. Since some people die from the ill effects from secondhand smoke, you've got to outlaw tobacco if you're going to outlaw guns.
The reality is that shootings at the Aurora, CO theater were already illegal. I can't imagine any law that would have made it less of a tragedy with one possible exception: A law to make owning or possessing assault style weapons illegal AND that requires a door to door search of every building in the country by law enforcement to remove those weapons from the population. That law would be tragic in its own unique way, and dare I say it would dwarf the deaths of those people.
I don't know what the solution is to prevent this from ever happening again, but if it results in a broad loss of freedom is it worth it?
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