You mean people shooting each other...yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about. It's a monstrously idiotic arms race. He might have a gun so you better have one. He might pull it first so you better retaliate first. After all, you thought your life was in danger because he's probably armed. If you didn't want to risk it then why are you armed?
I'll never be able to get across to you how bat s crazy it to me to talk about people shooting each other in a car park argument.
Forget about the figures. They just show the extent of the problem. It's the attitude is wrong. Dreadfully, horrifically wrong.
"Forget about the figures" isn't a mentality that should ever be part of pragmatic policymaking. Good policy is all about numbers, figures, and data...bad policy is more "feelings"-centric. (The worst kind of policy is the kind that is actually feelings-centric, but parades as data-centric by focusing on one myopically-oriented stat while ignoring all the others)
Especially when the mindset we're trying to dissect (that being, why so many US conservatives are resistant to the concept of gun control), the numbers are important.
It's also helpful when understanding why the current laws don't line up with what the majority of people want.
Point of reference (if we unpackage attitudes on various control measures that comprise the "common sense gun control suite")
Universal Background Checks have 88% support (including the support of most republicans)
Waiting periods have 78% support (including support from 53% of gun owners)
Raising the age from 18 to 21 (91% support overall, 64% support from gun owners)
Gun registries. 70% support overall
Magazine Capacity Restrictions have about 55% overall support
As I noted before, a lot of people aren't crazy about the "We should do it just like England" talk. For many folks, while everyone would be in favor of reducing one's lifetime risk of being murdered by 75% (who wouldn't be), when that comes bundled with other policies that doubles the lifetime risk of getting raped or assaulted + a 33% increase of having your car stolen or house broken into - per the figures I posted before - (considering all of those things are already far more likely than murder anyway), that's when they start to lose some people as it's less clear if that's really the win-win tradeoff it's being presented as.
Perhaps I can use an example of another issue (drugs) to illustrate the point I'm trying to convey.
Most people in their right mind would say they don't want heroin to be widely available and legal for recreational consumption. However, if the only "messenger" about that issue is the same person who just said last week that "
we should criminalize all drugs to the greatest possible extent and lock people up for 10 years who get caught smoking pot, I don't care about the stats & figures, I just know drugs = death"
I assume you, like I, would have some reservations about letting them take the driver's seat with regards to drug policy, yes?
If given the choice, some people would back the candidate who obstructs any/all drug laws before they'd support the one that says "we should lock people up from smoking a joint" (even if they agree with that person on the topic of the harder drugs)
So while no reasonable person would ever say "I think it's great that people can shoot each other over a parking lot argument", most people are also not going to be cool with the concept of "if someone is trying to rob, rape, or assault you, you should just have to lay back and take it (or rely on some ineffective nonsense you learned in a karate class) because that's the civilized thing to do"
And at a certain point, people are going to start doing the "likelihood calculations" in their heads.
For instance (and this is an exaggerated example for effect)
If under the status quo, my chances of getting sexually assaulted in a parking lot were 1 out of 10
And my chances of getting mowed down in a mass shooting were 1 out of 10,000,000
And someone said "if you just give up any and all means of self defense" (that's what England has...no guns, no knives, no batons, no pepper spray", sure, your chances of getting sexually assaulted would go to 1 out of 5, but your chances of getting killed in a mass shooting would drop to 1 out of 30,000,000...
...that's not a trade-off most people would make.
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