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Old November 24, 2008, 06:58 PM   #12
Evan Thomas
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Join Date: July 7, 2008
Location: Upper midwest
Posts: 5,631
One thing I've found effective with some non gun owners, ones who are open to a more or less libertarian argument, is to make a case for a right to own guns that's independent of the 2nd Amendment: if it's wrong (and bad policy) to legislate against other activities which harm no one (examples: recreational drug use, consensual sexual conduct between adults, etc.), how is gun ownership any different?

And when they cite the possibility of guns being stolen and used to commit crimes, or the potential of harm (via accident or misuse) to children or innocent bystanders, automobile ownership is a useful counterexample: it's possible to make the same arguments about cars, but no one is proposing to ban them... despite the fact that they probably do a lot more harm than guns when used as they're meant to be. (Pollution, using up scarce resources...) And annual mortality related to the two (guns and cars) is roughly equivalent, at least in terms of absolute numbers...
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