All firearms are for Superiority by someone suffering from Inferiority. — DifferentiatingEgg

In Alaska (which is an American territory), some sparely populated villages do not have traditional roads that can be navigated by vehicles during certain times of the year or certain levels of severe weather. Villagers traveling to and from certain villages often for miles at a time can face life and death risk if accosted by grizzly bears or other wild animals that are common and known to frequent said areas of wilderness. Do you suggest they simply get eaten? :chin:

In Alaska (which is an American territory), some sparely populated villages do not have traditional roads that can be navigated by vehicles during certain times of the year or certain levels of severe weather. Villagers traveling to and from certain villages often for miles at a time can face life and death risk if accosted by grizzly bears or other wild animals that are common and known to frequent said areas of wilderness. Do you suggest they simply get eaten? :chin: — Outlander

Long guns are a different conversation from handguns, but you might be overstating the danger of getting eaten by a bear in Alaska. There is an average of 11 bear attacks per year in all of North America (so that'd be continental US, Canada and Alaska), half involving dogs because apparently, they attack the bears. Your chances of a bear attack (and not necessarily dying from it) are 1 in 2.1 million. I have hiked some trails where I carried pepper spray, which I'm told is a better deterrent than squaring up and shooting the bear. https://worldanimalfoundation.org/advocate/bear-attacks-statistics/

But I get it, the poster said all guns were bad, so you just had to come with a single counterexample to disprove the "all." But sure, let the inuit keep their guns. I suspect it'd be pretty hard to maintain their lifestyle with arrows and spears.

In Alaska (which is an American territory — Outlander

It's a state, not a territory.

aye, and they still grab a firearm because a bear is superior to man naturally...

sparely populated villages — Outlander

sparsely*

Long guns are a different conversation from handguns — Hanover

Generally so, yes. Of course, it ultimately depends on whom you ask. Some people are reasonable, some aren't. You know that.

you might be overstating the danger of getting eaten by a bear in Alaska. There is an average of 11 bear attacks per year in all of North America [...] Your chances of a bear attack (and not necessarily dying from it) are 1 in 2.1 million. — Hanover

Perhaps. But a danger is a danger and a man has a right to at least be aware of such, even if the chances of such are nominal.

Also, those sort of statistics are based on documentation of events, not the events themselves. Surely you don't believe every time a man dies the government is there to report and archive it. That's silly. Missing persons, for example (those that actually make the list, as isolated or otherwise rural villages in such a place may simply never go reported at all), could perhaps be the result of many non-witnessed animal deaths. Not to imply your statistics are starkly inaccurate, only that perhaps there's plenty they're not showing. Even one, unreported death is a tragedy. The smaller the community, the more impactful it "actually" is to said society. So all life being valuable, it becomes important.

But I get it, the poster said all guns were bad, so you just had to come with a single counterexample to disprove the "all." — Hanover

In the interest of preserving the integrity of the larger debate, I observed my good friend @DifferentiatingEgg mistakenly introducing a less-than-useful blanket statement into said debate, of which my response was to offer a friendly and lighthearted correction.Which was immediately performed with admirable precision.

One valid counter-argument is all you need to qualify a statement or principle as false, or at the very least in need of significant and fundamental revision in order to better reflect the truth and accuracy of the world or situation it purports to describe. If that's important. If not, well, that's your sentiment and worldview, and you have a right to have it.

As an aside, I have many more counterexamples, some of which are found on this thread from multiple posters. But I shall save them for the future.

It's a state, not a territory. — frank

Lower case "territory"; meaning anything including uppercase States, Provinces, and yes, legal Territories. Basically just meaning, "part of the United States", and so relevant to the debate, which seems to nearly-obsessively (perhaps to be expected) revolve around such a place.

Im not debating with anyone here. It's quite simple though, you pick up a fire arm when you require superiority...

The reasons why a person requires superiority vary widely... some times that feeling is "I need a firearm because I am truly an impotent worm who needs to feel superior to others...." like Kyle Rittenhouse, a pale criminal who thirsted for blood.

So those who favor gun control favor tyranny. — Leontiskos

:lol:

you pick up a fire arm when you require superiority — DifferentiatingEgg

What if you like to target shoot? You never played a game like horseshoes or Whack-a-Mole? Asteroids? It's the same concept, really. Skeet shooting, etc. If you're not from a land that embraces such, I'm sure you'd know little of it. But that's of little consequence.

One could instead rephrase your argument as "when you wish to minimize risk of injury in dealing with something undesirable." Why don't you just get on your hands and knees and pluck each blade of overgrown grass or weed, one by one. You know, "be a man." Because it's a waste of time. It's rubbish, something undesirable (the overgrown foliage), for example. Good people have a right to use the cumulative innovation and progress to ease your life from that which is a threat to it. How could any sane person disagree?

If you're 5'2" and a criminal who clearly expresses his desire to kill or injure you who is 6'2" is chasing you, perhaps with an exposed weapon, either sharp or blunt, on top of it all. Without a gun, unless you're some sort of Superman, you will surely perish. Do you not understand that? It's not very difficult. :confused:

Please try to say something relevant instead of drive-by emotional outbursts, lest ye be hypocrite #1 :)

Hmm. Having read several of the more substantial responses, I think I am further pushed into my position: Guns are necessary to level the field, whether between or intra-species. This seems enough.

Control, though, is tricky for one reason only: The enforcement of gun control requires gun use. I'm unsure I need to explain why that's tricky.

lmao, so the 5'2 guy is grabbing the firearm for superiority out of inferiority. Thought you'd eventually see it my way. You're the kind of guy who doesn't like admitting basic things like "man, I'm at a disadvantage..."?

That's the whole point of a firearm to give advantage. It's pretty manly to accept you're in a position where you require superiority through firepower because you're inferior...

Objective moralist do "when you wish to minimize risk of injury in dealing with something undesirable."

Control, though, is tricky for one reason only: The enforcement of gun control requires gun use. I'm unsure I need to explain why that's tricky. — AmadeusD

I think that hones in on the political sophistry or equivocation involved, which I pointed to in my . It is this: when one talks about "gun control," what they think they are talking about is controlling the availability of guns. By "gun control" they think they mean, "making guns scarce." But if you ask how guns are to be made scarce, it quickly becomes apparent that scarcity is achieved by giving all the guns to one set of people and having those people use the guns to coercively prevent others from obtaining guns. The parallel of nuclear disarmament is not even theoretically possible in the case of guns.

So by, "Making guns scarce," one actually means, "Making guns scarce for one group while making them readily available for another group."

If we ignore this political sophistry then the arguments look pretty good. Indeed, even if we confront the sophistry one might still think that it is preferable to give all the guns to one group of people (along with everything that entails). But once one spots the political sophistry the arguments in favor of "gun control" are no longer as strong or as easy to make.

The deeper point here is that this is a complex issue that does not have a simple, bumper sticker answer. We can't just cite a stat and foreclose the whole debate. For example, the prevalence of mental illness within a society is going to have a measurable effect on opinions about gun control. Feminist arguments are going to play a role. Disenfranchisement (vis-a-vis arms) is going to play a role. Gross homicide statistics are going to play a role. Trust or distrust towards the government and also one's fellow citizens is going to play a role. Still, I think the biggest blind spot in modern liberal democracies is the political sophistry noted above.

(NB: Aristotle held that in a truly democratic order, everyone would not only have a right to arms, but would also own arms and be trained in the use of arms. For the poor this would have to be provided, given their limited resources. Indeed, Aristotle held that an arrangement where the lower classes (i.e. the majority) either did not have access to arms or were not trained in the use of arms was not a democracy in any true sense. Even if the lower classes were able to vote they would still ultimately be powerless to maintain the democratic order if they did not possess the means of coercion that the upper classes possessed.)

So by, "Making guns scarce," one actually means, "Making guns scarce for one group while making them readily available for another group. — Leontiskos

I don't think too many people would shy away from this. It's the underlying justification and detail that makes people squirm.

Who holds the guns? You can name several classes that, prima facie, seem up for the job (as OP did, i think).
IN reality, they are all humans. Back to square 1. I'm unsure this is the biggest problem with modern political sophistry, but it is probably hte one popular discourse trips up on hte most (and why most discourse turns into yelling matches).

- Yes, I think that's right. :up: