The following is an imagined conversation between a liberal and conservative about guns, gun violence, and gun control that is meant to answer and address common questions and arguments liberals have on this subject.
Liberals will look at this and say all I'm trying to do is make them look bad. I want to be very clear that I'm not trying.
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Liberal: Isn't it time to stand up to the NRA?
Conservative: Name one mass shooter that was one of its members. Spoiler alert, there aren't any.
The NRA fights to preserve the second amendment, and it promotes responsibility, so what exactly are we supposed to be "standing up" to? The Constitution?
Liberal: Yeah, but isn't the second amendment obsolete? People fought with muskets when that relic of the past was written.
Conservative: We didn't have internet porn when the first amendment was written either, yet the courts have found it counts as protected speech.
Liberal: Yeah it is!
Conservative: If the founding fathers wanted to say the second amendment only applies to muskets then they would've written it down. Advances in technology don't invalidate constitutional amendments, particularly those that are part of the Bill of Rights.
Liberal: What's that?
Conservative: ... (it's hard to get upset, I'm sure that's a typical FAQ for lofos and liberals, but I repeat myself)
Liberal: Why don't conservatives care about gun violence?
Conservative: That question doesn't deserve the dignity of a response, but it will get one because that's what this post is about.
Conservatives care just as much about condemning violence and mass shootings against innocent people about as much liberals care about defending its perpetrators with excuses laced with white guilt, which usually happens right after the fantasy that it was some white Christian conservative is shattered.
Liberal: If conservatives care about gun violence then why do they oppose "common sense" gun legislation?
Conservative: Conservatives and liberals have very different ideas on what "common sense" actually means. For conservatives it means allowing people to have the liberty to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms. For liberals it means reacting to shootings by passing any type of legislation that makes them feel like they've done something about gun violence. The more well-intentioned it is in there mind the better the law, actual results are irrelevant.
For conservatives, common sense solutions actually involve common sense. Giving people the liberty to defend themselves, or at least a paradigm where a potential attacker believes they're going into a situation where they'll experience resistance is the real "common sense" solution here. Gun violence, after all, has decreased everywhere except advertised gun-free zones.
Liberal: President Obama points out we are the only "advanced" nation that has as many mass shootings and murders as we do, can't you see the connection between that and the fact that the United States has, by far, the most guns per capita in the world?
Conservative: No. There is no connection.
Liberal: Why? Because the NRA said so?
Conservative: No, because the facts say so. There is no direct correlation between the prevalence of guns (or weapons of any kind) and incidence of homicide. The United States has the most guns per capita, (112.6 per 100,000) but our murder rate is #121 of 218 (3.8 per 100,000).
By a very stark contrast, Honduras has the most murders per capita (90.4 per 100,000) but it ranks 87 of 175 in guns per capita (6.2 per 100,000).
At the state level, according to this chart Washington DC with its 3.6% gun ownership rate had 16.5 gun murders (per 100,000 people). That's more than double the #2 state, Louisiana, with 7.7 gun murders and an ownership rate of 44.1%. The lowest ranked state, Vermont, had 0.3 gun murders and an ownership rate of 42%.
There is simply no data that supports the assertion by Democrats that merely possessing guns, and lots of them, in and of itself makes gun murders more likely.
Liberal: If that were true then why do other "advanced" countries in Europe have strict gun laws AND lower murder rates than the United States?
Conservative: As this video points out, (it's 6 minutes, but it's worth your time and makes this point crystal clear) it isn't conservative "gun nuts" in Texas driving America's murder rate, it's violence and murder spurred by gangs in inner cities that are wholly owned by the Democratic Party. If you removed America's gang infestation from the equation the murder rate would actually be closer to, if not lower than many countries in Europe.
Liberal: Well, maybe those cities vote Democrat because their residents know that Republicans don't want to get rid of guns in America.
Conservative: If that were true then explain Chicago, which has some of the most strict gun laws in the country and yet their murder rate is 4 times that of the entire country.
Just like there is no relationship between prevalence of guns and murder, there is no evidence that strict gun laws, or even a ban itself would do anything to actually end violence by guns, or lower murder rates.
Liberal: Fine, but no other country has mass shootings as much as America does.
Conservative: On a per capita basis that, like everything else you believe, is also not true. <-- 5.="" a="" aka="" as="" at="" but="" capita="" chart="" even="" fatalities="" has="" in="" link="" mass="" most="" nominally="" not="" of="" our="" p="" per="" population="" proportion="" re="" s="" shooting="" shows="" the="" this="" top="" u.s.="" we="" world="">
Liberal: Why do you oppose background checks?
Conservative: We don't.
Liberal: Yes you do.
Conservative: Actually, you do, Obama is the least vetted president in modern American history, and YOU gave him access to nuclear weapons.
Liberal: Yeah but he's not going to use them. That wouldn't be fair to the countries that don't have them.
Conservative: ....
Liberal: That's why we shouldn't freak out if Iran develops nuclear weapons, we're less likely to go to war with them if they had them.
Conservative: ....and that more important to the left than the right for Americans to bear arms because...
Liberal: Is it not clear to you that the mass shootings show Americans can't be trusted with guns?
Conservative: ....
Liberal: What?
Conservative: Nothing, I just learned how much it hurts my head when dangerously ironic statements cross my eyes...Looking past that as best I can...
It's not that we oppose background checks, it's that if we're going to have them then they should actually work. California has very strict gun control laws and they utterly failed to stop the San Bernadino terror attack. Every time one happens Democrats predictably call for more of the same. Why should reasonable people support such insanity?
Liberal: All conservatives do is say no to new gun laws. Why don't conservatives ever give their own solutions on dealing with gun violence?
Conservative: We do, you just don't like them because it precludes government control over our lives. Instead of being tied up in red tape caused by onerous and apparently useless gun laws, conservatives say people should be empowered to defend themselves by being allowed to bear arms with proper training.
Another way it has been put is this: Only Way To Stop A Bad Guy With A Gun Is With A Good Guy With A Gun. The only real common sense in this debate is that criminals, like bullies, prefer the path of least resistance. Allowing the law-abiding to arm themselves does more to stop crime than disarming them ever would.
If such a fundamentally simple fact as that wasn't true then why would we even bother arming the police?
Liberal: More people with guns stops gun violence? Isn't that like saying "fighting for peace is like f-ing for virginity?"
Conservative: First off, the definition of peace, REAL peace, isn't the absence of conflict. If that were true then totalitarian dictatorships would be considered among the most peaceful nations in the world.
Second, your analogy is idiotic. The prosperity earned through the liberty you enjoy was earned in war and nothing less. It was never gained through well-intentioned bongo banging and joint toking sessions of John Lennon karaoke.
Liberal: You really don't think allowing guns in order to stop guns is idiotic?
Conservative: Let's put signs in front of our homes. Mine will say "the residents of this home are gun owners" and yours will say "this is a gun-free zone." Well make the announcement on social media and see who feels like the bigger idiot then.
Liberal: You're missing the point, why don't we just make all guns illegal? Wouldn't that stop guns too?
Conservative: Laws are meant to deter and punish. Criminals who flout the law don't care about deterrence, and the ones willing to kill with guns don't care about punishment. If a life sentence or the death penalty for murder isn't enough to stop a murderer then how would stiffer gun penalties do the trick?
Liberal: But, what if stricter gun laws would result in saving just one life, wouldn't it all be worth it?
Conservative: That is precisely the type of thinking Benjamin Franklin warned against when he said (paraphrasing) that those who would trade liberty for security deserve (and would get) neither. Besides, laws restricting abortion might save lives, and Democrats fight to the death (see what I did there?) to defend them.
Liberal: That's different.
Conservative: Not a question, however, since all of your views are questionable I guess anything you say technically counts as one. So abortion is different because...?
Liberal: Because a fetus isn't a life.
Conservative: So if you went back in time and aborted...say...Abraham Lincoln, that would've been ok?
Liberal: Why does that name sound so familiar?
Conservative: Let's dumb it down for you...He was #BlackLivesMatter before it was cool. At the risk of needing to call in the bomb squad to contain your mind, you should know he was an old white Republican.
Liberal: Whatever, what does abortion have to do with this anyway? Didn't the Supreme Court rule that abortion is a privacy right under the 14th amendment?
Conservative: Yes, the Supreme Court extended the right to privacy through due process under the 14th amendment to abortion. They had to perform some logical acrobatics to get there, which is in contradistinction to the Second Amendment to that Constitution, which says explicitly that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Liberal: What's your point?
Conservative: Abortion isn't actually a right, at least not one that was enumerated under the Constitution.
Liberal: Yes it is.
Conservative: No, it isn't.
Liberal: But, the Supreme Court ru-
Conservative: Rules incorrectly on certain things from time to time, such as abortion (and Obamacare, while we're at it), because they are not infallible.
Liberal: But but but...banning abortions would create back alley abortions.
Conservative: How so? (I know the answer)
Liberal: Because if someone REALLY wants an abortion they will find a way to get it from someone who is willing to provide it.
Conservative: And that couldn't happen if guns were banned?
Liberal: Why are you changing the subject to abortion anyway?
Conservative: Because it points out the left's hypocrisy on arguing for gun control laws as a means to curtail gun use, and the complete insincerity of their concern for saving innocent life. For every life in America lost to gun violence abortion has claimed 100 times more than that.
Yet, liberals insist abortion should be on demand and publicly funded, while guns should be banned or very heavily restricted to the point where the people would agree to banning them.
They argue that abortion restrictions won't necessarily stop abortions, but that gun restrictions will stop guns, which are a lot easier to hide from government than abortions.
They argue that we should take advances in technology into account when considering the relevance of the second amendment, because in their eyes the only constitutionally valid way to protect your home from a robber with a glock is with a musket.
Meanwhile, their insistence that a human fetus is just a clump of cells is an anti-science position that clings bitterly to the past. It requires completely ignoring the quantum leap in medical technological advancement that has taken place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. More than 4 decades later we know SO MUCH MORE about what goes on in the womb, one of the things we have learned is we know unequivocally that a fetus is life.
The left's zealotry over abortion totally destroys their credibility on anything they have to say about guns, and leaves their true motives and intentions suspect.
Liberal: Can you hold on a second while I find my race card?
Conservative: No, we're done here.
Meme at the top found here.
