On 2/1/2011 12:41 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> As devil's advocate, I have to ask the question, "At what point do you
>> conclude that this is unmanageable, and something more extreme has to
>> be done to stop it?"
>
> http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html
>
> Seems like firearm deaths, including shooting people in self defense and
> police shooting people, counts as a bit over 1% of all deaths.
> Automobiles kill more people than guns, but nobody talks about outlawing
> them.
>
I am sure that logging did, at one time, and seamanship, etc. I find the 
use of that argument seriously flawed, since the average person needs a 
way to get to and from work, and even if that wasn't the case, its often 
the most effective way to get things from one place to another for 
resale. Unless you are going to try to argue that the vast majority of 
people need guns to hunt for food, or count nail guns and staplers, its 
not a reasonable comparison, any more than saying, "X number of people 
fall out of windows every year, so we should ban windows". Most deaths 
are, invariably, either a) health related, b) accident related, or c) a 
result of dangerous things that we **need** to do something else, which 
in no way involves the intent to hurt/kill someone.

Compare deaths from poisoning, knives (of the sort carried for 
"defense"), and what ever other *avoidable* causes there may be, which 
are not a secondary consequence of misuse of something whose purpose was 
*not* to cause injury/harm/death, then make an argument. And, no, guns 
***have no other use*** other than to kill, injure and/or threaten the 
death/injury someone/something. Its a tool whole primary use is the one 
it is used for, when it ends up killing someone, not a misuse, or accident.

I really hate such attempts to ignore the original use of things, in an 
attempt to claim equivalency. Its illogical, and ridiculous. You can 
kill people with water too, it doesn't make places that bottle water the 
equivalent of those that make armor piercing rounds.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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