Well, Brad, due to a confluence of events, as well as the thought and challenge of your feedback, I have begun a shift in mentality that gravitates closer to your own. I am willing to concede that the legality of guns and their subsequent propogation amongst the populace should indeed, as you believe, be allowed to prosper. I'll get into the details of what prompted this transformation:
Several nights ago, I randomly watched a video on the internet of a short lecture about 5 dangerous things that we should let our kids do, which included activities such as playing with fire, playing with knives, and taking things apart. His point about our culture being overly, zealously overprotective applies not only to children, but also to our entire populace. Businesses have to extensively label hot beverage containers in order to not be sued by adults who should be perfectly aware of what such a container contains. Our entire nation is babied by commerce and the law. While the effort to render the world safer is laudable, at a certain point, the rest is up to us. We have to take responsibility for our own choices and mistakes.
In the video, the lecturer makes reference to Inuit children, who learn to handle sharp knives as infants. It is unthinkable to most Western parents to let children within hand's reach of a knife. Yet children are capable of adapting to the danger of knives, and wielding them as tools, as long as they are given a chance to explore and learn on their own. And when I was in Colombia, where traffic laws are practically non-existent, I learned that the populace, as well as dogs, are also capable of adapting to the extreme danger of cars that will not stop for pedestrians and that speed recklessly.
This connection between my thoughts on the traffic in Colombia and the idea of allowing our children to engage in dangerous activities was further tied in by your statement on the uselessness of the "war on Drugs", which reminded me that I have already myself detailed the pointlessness and outright stupidity of rendering drugs illegal. And so thus it's not such a big step for me to recognize that the same outlook that I apply to drugs needs to apply to guns as well.
I feel like trying to explicate all of this the way it transpired in my mind is a bit disconnecting, but I wanted to let you know why I would begin to suddenly agree with you after posing such seemingly strong opposition. The points that I agree with you on are that despite the obvious inherent danger of firearms, they should be allowed on a legal basis because one way or another, people will procure them.
Another factor in my thought was the idea that even as dangerous and outright evilguns can be when used for warfare and for acts of criminal bitterness, guns are still a reflection of technological progression. They are a form of empowerment, offering both greater range, as well as greater destruction. This thought I want pontificate a little about in my next post. I think that it is inevitable that much hurt is going to occur from the use of guns, but that collectively, humanity must evolve to learn to handle and respect this danger, just as the Inuit child develops an understanding and respect of the danger of the sharp knife.
If psychotic individuals go on rampages with guns, then this is a reflection of the sickness that lies embedded within humanity. Whatever the method, whatever the means, the selfish human mind will find a way to hurt others.