It seems to me any rational discussion of gun laws has to begin with this as a bottom line stipulation. You may not see this as a huge leap, but I can assure you, to many 2nd amendment absolutists, it is the Grand Canyon.
See, the argument goes; you can kill somebody with a car, too. Or a baseball bat, or a plastic bag, or a pillow. They are all inanimate objects & equally dangerous, or equally non dangerous. I've had some folks break it down for me molecularly; it's just a bunch of molecules arranged in a certain way, none of those molecules is inherently dangerous, so how could one arrangement be more dangerous than another? Facile nonsense, to me, but it is an argument I hear all the time.
Yes indeed, cars do kill people - a lot of people. Cars are dangerous machines. We recognize that & have certain registration & licensing procedures because we recognize that. Further, to operate your motor vehicle in public we require insurance & further licensing licensing that requires certain knowledge & physical skills. You may have to prove you can parallel park your vehicle. I do not know what the ballistic equivalent of parallel parking would be, but I am reasonably sure that the overwhelming majority of handgun owners/carriers have never passed such a test.
The wise wise heads on the Supreme Court have determined that by birth, every American is given the right to own a loaded handgun. I don't think they made the leap to "handguns are not dangerous."
The even wiser heads in the Arizona State legislature have determined that it is appropriate for the citizens in this state to carry concealed firearms pretty much anywhere - bars, cars, churches, Jack-in-the-Box, you name it. Some of the really superior thinkers in the State legislature have said the more people packing heat the safer everybody is. That college classes full of armed students would be safer environments for learning. (Question: Who gets to sit in the back?)
I know I live in a country with about as many guns as people. I know those guns are not going to go away. I know many Americans just love their guns & many see any sort of restriction as the first step toward taking their love away. In fact, I found a friend of mine's reason for owning the dozen or so that he has, "I just like 'em," as compelling as any 2nd amendment, fight tyranny, self defense argument. I don't want to take everyone's guns away Not even if it was possible - which it is not.
Can we not, as a starting point at least in any discussion of firearms & firearms safety, at least acknowledge that a loaded handgun is more dangerous than a pillow? I've posited this here on dkos a couple of times & gotten a lot of vehement denials. Not surprising to me really. What is surprising is that not one of the "safe, sane, there should be training," folks ever finds their way into a thread to say, "c'mon, of course it's more dangerous. That's why I lock mine up." "That's why I don't give my six year old a loaded gun when he goes to sleep." "That's why I don't just leave it loaded on the coffee table." Nope, when it comes to the most basic of admissions, that a loaded handgun is more dangerous than a pillow, the safe, sane folk are really quiet.
