Three people reportedly shot in Six Flags Great America parking lot

Having breasts has nothing to do with it? I'm trying to be charitable, but I really don't know what you mean by this. I mean, I know you're not a misogynist, so I don't think you're suggesting that one's perception of the need for self-defense is gender agnostic, but I don't know how else to read that comment. Maybe you could clarify.

And if that is what you're suggesting, then maybe you should watch the first couple minutes of this video. The whole video...nay, the whole video series is worth watching. It should go without saying that women are far more vulnerable than men due to their comparative physical disadvantages (on average of course, yeah I know Ronda Rousey could kick McLovin's ass) and suffer violence at the hands of men way more than vice versa. So for those reasons, and especially since at the current moment we live in a society where the bad guys do have guns, I think it's reasonable for, at the very least, a woman to feel that she needs a way to defend herself. And a gun is a good tool for self defense.

...but there are scarcely 100 home intrusion murders per year...

You've been doing this a lot. You did it with the flat tire thing, and the "gun free zone" sign thing, and now this. I thought that the one nightstand example was a suitable stand-in for any number of examples that illustrate the larger point, without actually having to list other examples. So you shooting down the home invasion scenario as unlikely negates the point I'm making? Do I actually need to articulate other examples that everyone already knows about anyway? So be it:

• Living in a crime ridden neighborhood
• Being harassed by an angry and violent ex boyfriend / husband
• Having to leave work every night by walking through an empty parking garage to get to your car
• Having your daily route to work take you through a sketchy area
• Being stalked or receiving threatening phone calls or messages

The_Orient_of_Express:

I am thankful that the officer was there to take out the bad guy.

I don't understand why it is necessary to shoot a guy with a knife. The guy with a knife may not have broken any laws, and therefore is not necessarily "the bad guy." We don't know that the officer even "took out" the bad guy, let alone agree that "taking him out" was a good thing based only on what was written.

Many schools that are gun free zones do have armed SROs. Our school does and I am perfectly fine with that. Locked doors are actually the most effective way to stop casualties in a mass shooting event. There have only been three instances where someone behind a locked door was killed by a mass shooter. One involved the shooter shooting out the window next to the door to get in. Another involved a person barricaded in the locked room with the shooter. The third was at Parkland where students weren't sufficiently clear of the door and were shot through it.

First responders with hundreds of hours of training in mass casualty events fail to prevent these events. Just look at Uvalde and the Highland Park shootings. I don't think a staff member with as little as 24 hours of training (looking at you Ohio) will perform better or even be a deterrent. They'll actually be the first target.

Every country deals with the mental health issues that we deal with in the United States. Yet we have mass shootings regularly. What is different here?

Bakeman31092:

You've been doing this a lot.

What is "this" exactly?

Shooting down the specific example of something that somebody gives, seemingly to discredit the larger point.

Isn't that what debating is? Am I not accompanying that with reason?

"Seemingly"?

If you want me to engage, you have to speak in sentences and define some kind of claim or thesis. Single words devoid of context don't mean anything to me.

Sorry - that wasn't directed at you Jeff, it was in response to Bakeman.

Shooting down the specific example of something that somebody gives, seemingly to discredit the larger point.

If you invalidate the specific example that somebody gives in support of their point, it discredits their point. There isn't any "seemingly" about it.

To add to what Jeff said, we could solve a lot of our country's problems by looking at how other countries have solved them, but unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the American way. If solving a problem prevents someone from profiting in our country, it's not going to be solved.

I'm hoping to have time to watch the video Bakeman shared later, I need to pack for a trip today (with a possibility of Knoebel's being involved, fingers crossed) and to think more on the other responses here but if I don't get the chance I'm just going to throw it out there that as much as I wish it didn't matter having breasts does make a difference. I don't like that it does. I wish that it didn't. But trust me, as one of the few women in this forum, when I say it matters.

Paisley:

(with a possibility of Knoebel's being involved, fingers crossed)

Headed to CGA with the possibility of a side trip?

Headed to meet up with the son's love interest while their family is spending time with family in PA so neither of them needs to make the full trip between Ohio and Vermont. Knoebels is on the list of possible things they would like to do together. It's the closest thing she has to a home park because apparently there's not much to do in Vermont.

hambone:

If you invalidate the specific example that somebody gives in support of their point, it discredits their point. There isn't any "seemingly" about it.

I disagree. The specific example is just that: an example. There is a larger point being made that is supported by many other examples, so it would seem to me that if your are going to debate, you should try to contend with the larger point instead of that one example.

Jeff:

I don't expect to need a lot of things, and so I don't carry them. Why is a gun different?

Vater:

I don't expect to puncture a tire when I drive anywhere, but my car has a spare.

Jeff:

I also expect to get a flat tire, so I'm still where I started.

I just found Jeff's response there kind of strange. Vater's larger point was that people do many things in order to be prepared for a worst case scenario, even if they don't actually "expect" that scenario to play out. There are so many other examples you could list here, which Vater did in that post. Here are few more:

• Changing the batteries in your smoke detectors
• Locking your doors at night
• Installing a security system in your home
• Wearing your, ahem, seatbelt

So are we saying that in fact every precaution people take in their lives is in response to something they actually expect to happen? I don't think that was the argument, but if it was then fine. We can agree to disagree there. Obviously, carrying a gun in public presents some amount of risk to other people that those other precautions don't, so that's a fair point to make. But I don't think there's a slam dunk argument against allowing people to keep a gun in their home.

At this point I should probably state my actual position: I am not a gun nut. I have never owned a gun, nor have I ever fired one. The only time I've actually touched one was when I was taking it away from someone who was in great distress and might have been suicidal. And I do think America's gun-worshiping culture is baffling and sort of embarrassing. But the fact remains that guns are ubiquitous in our society, and so the first place to start is to consider what peaceful, law-abiding citizens should be permitted to do in the face of that fact. A multi-billion dollar buy-back / confiscation program ain't gonna happen.

I am in favor of much stricter gun laws. I don't see any justification for anyone owning an "assault-style" weapon. But I think our society should stop looking to our politicians to fix the problem and instead start looking in the mirror. Ban AR15s. Require universal background checks, licenses and constant training. All well and good. But you're still treating the symptom and not the illness.

We should also be clear about which problem we are wanting to solve, because each problem requires a different approach. I find it funny that the incidents that always stir up the gun debate are these mass shootings, where the evil randomly intrudes in what is supposed to be a safe space. However, as has been pointed out, mass shootings, as horrifying and psychologically traumatizing to the nation as they are, still make up a very small percentage of overall gun homicides. Meanwhile, gun violence claims the lives of 30 black people every day, on average. Why isn't that statistic driving the gun debate? Because it happens in the inner cities, or the poor part of town, or the other side of the tracks? Despite being fairly liberal-minded, I generally don't see racism in as many places as other progressives seem to, but in this case I definitely do.

The problem with any analog that anyone attempts to draw on is that none of them involve a device made to kill people. That automatically makes it necessary to apply completely different rules. And even more weird, we apply different rules because America. No one can ever explain why functional democracies without armed citizens can exist, but if we go down that road, it's the path to fascism or the end of democracy. (Which is timely, because now we can see that democracy can crumble just by suggesting it's not working because your guy didn't get the votes. No weapons required, just social media.)

Jeff:

The problem with any analog that anyone attempts to draw on is that none of them involve a device made to kill people.

One could argue that. One could also argue that it’s simply a tool designed to stop a threat as effectively as possible. Semantics? Maybe…until you consider the reason a person would want to own one. One might want one to kill, another might want one to defend.

Context matters.

Defend by what means? Threaten to harm someone or actually harm someone are there two that I can think of. Seems like a gun is intended to harm someone.

Killing people is still killing people regardless of the words used, or whether it's offense or defense. I mean, you're right that there's a larger cultural thing. I'd sum it up by comparing that the US has Customs and Border Protection while Canada has the Border Services Agency. I mean, talk about words and context.

That analogy made less sense than any of the ones Bakeman and I posited.

I’m seriously in disbelief that I’m sitting here trying to convince anyone that I should be allowed to own a gun to defend myself or my family against someone with bad intentions. We’re so far off the rails I can’t even see the train anymore.

I knew when this started that I wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind and no one was going to change mine.

That's because you're making the "law abiding citizen" argument. I'm saying you don't need to protect yourself if bad guys also don't have guns. If there's any disconnect, that's it. You can't separate good and bad guys from having guns, so if neither has them, what's the problem?