I understand your point but guns are a great equalizer for anyone who isn’t a young, strong male. Gun vs gun is more equal than fist vs fist or whatever else would be happening instead.
Except that when you allow guns to be purchased widely, malcontents will always purchase them in greater quantities and more frequently, by nature of being malcontents and attracted to something that gives them more power.
Because guns are not inherently an equalizer, they are just a way of giving someone an enormous amount of deadly power. If you give two people that same enormous amount of deadly power then it can equalize them compared to where they were before, but that is the only case where they equalize things, and they’ve equalized them by making them both twitchy dangerous live grenades.
I.e. I can equalize milk that’s a month old and milk that I just bought by leaving them both in the sun for a few hours. That doesn’t mean I’ve made society better or safer. Like I said, the arguments for gun ownership only ever make sense in an anecdotal one off scenario. Every single one falls apart when you examine its effects at a society wide, systemic level.
I understand your point but guns are a great equalizer for anyone who isn’t a young, strong male. Gun vs gun is more equal than fist vs fist or whatever else would be happening instead.
Except that when you allow guns to be purchased widely, malcontents will always purchase them in greater quantities and more frequently, by nature of being malcontents and attracted to something that gives them more power.
Because guns are not inherently an equalizer, they are just a way of giving someone an enormous amount of deadly power. If you give two people that same enormous amount of deadly power then it can equalize them compared to where they were before, but that is the only case where they equalize things, and they’ve equalized them by making them both twitchy dangerous live grenades.
I.e. I can equalize milk that’s a month old and milk that I just bought by leaving them both in the sun for a few hours. That doesn’t mean I’ve made society better or safer. Like I said, the arguments for gun ownership only ever make sense in an anecdotal one off scenario. Every single one falls apart when you examine its effects at a society wide, systemic level.