So let me get this straight. "I don't like guns. I don't own a gun. I think you should not own a gun either. Guns can be used to do horrible things."
"I don't like children. I don't have children. I don't think you should have children either. Children can grow up to become crazy people who do horrible things in Oklahoma City, through the Post Office, or sometimes with guns."
Is there a difference? Of course there is. But there is also an awful similarity. The former assumes guns are the essential problem in a small fraction of events, and seeks to eliminate them and any positive use for them to prevent those events. The latter trade-off does the same with human spawn, but would never be acceptable, even though we could have eliminated some pretty evil people in the process.
The previous reductio ad absurdum was brought to you by someone who has a real distaste for pat thinking and closed minds.
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Everyone should read Thomas Sowell's excellent analysis of the current "gun debate", Invincible Ignorance, which deconstructs the irrationality of gun control, complete with statistics.
But, there's more to it than that. One needs to ask why a certain segment of our society insists that this is the logical course of action when it clearly isn't. Why do some people instinctively turn to this? What drives them?
The answer is not new. It's the same reason we have bigots and ill-informed debates about fluoride and vaccinations.
Ignorance and the fear it begets.
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