Quote:
Originally posted by headsplice
More generally, isn't the problem with gun use/abuse (a very important distinction) similar to that of drugs? There are people who use drugs (including caffeine) in a moderately responsible fashion (i.e., they do no harm except to themselves). Is the same not true of guns? I neither plan nor want to ever harm anyone with a firearm. Ever. That are vastly destructive, both physically and emotionally. But, who is anyone else to say that I am not responsible enough to make that decision on my own? I am an adult and I take responsibility for my actions. I don't give a rat's ass what anyone else has ever done. Why do you (in general) want to take away my choices? What have I ever done to you. The actions of others are not relevant. You can show me all the statistics in the world, but they don't have doodie to do with what I have done. The actions of those who have abused their privileges is an entirely different matter. How can you take away my rights (at least, as a USian) based on the (mis)behavior of people with whom I neither associate nor want to be associated?
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Yet the government
does presume to take away my rights to alter my consciousness as it sees fit. Whats worse is that it is social fashionable amoung most employers to discriminate against those of us that feel that what we are doing is our business and not someone else's. In NY a possesion ticket is 50-100 dollars for small amounts and is only a violation, the same as traffic tickets. Yet we don't screen for speeders (and when you think about it which is more dangerous) in the hiring process.
Truthfully, I'm fairly ambivelent about guns, fun toys maybe, essential in the back woods sure, but cure of a social ill? That argument doesn't make sense to me. Ya'll can keep your guns, just let me smoke my pot in peace.