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15 points

Yes Don Jr is right that we should have guns generally, but more because of what his dad’s cult is doing.

Don’t ever believe that any gun control laws will disarm those guys. It’s way too easy to hide guns and ammo, and there are hundreds of millions of them all over the country.

So it’s best to have it and not need it, rather than needing it and not having it. Because they are going to have it anyway.

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14 points
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Don’t ever believe that any gun control laws will disarm those guys.

Even if this is true, counterintuitively, gun control laws will still work. We’ve seen this exact thing in Australia. (Which admittedly is easier to do because it’s an island)

What happens is that guns become more rare, and yes, only bad guys and cops have access to guns, however, because guns are rare, it’s much harder even for bad guys to get more guns. Guns become much more valuable, and as they’re valuable, bad guys will become reluctant to use them unless the reward is great. If you take a $1000 gun to rob $50 from a 7-11, and if you get caught, you’re losing $950. You’re way better off just using a knife or something, and then you can sell the gun.

So even if only bad guys have guns, guns are still used in fewer crimes. Everybody gets safer, little by little. Eventually, they’re only going to use guns for crimes with huge payoffs. And they were going to do that, anyways, even if there weren’t gun control laws.

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-6 points

Well we’re not going to do any of that in the USA. Fortunately our gun rights are inalienable and confirmed in triplicate by our Supreme Court.

I would never be happy with living in a society where the cops and criminals are the only ones with guns. Freedom is far more valuable to my life than security, and my security is perfectly fine for my risk tolerance level.

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7 points
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Freedom is far more valuable to my life than security

First of all, that isn’t even internally consistent. Security is the thing that ensures your life, not freedom. You may decide that freedom is more valuable than your security, but that is clearly risking your life, so freedom cannot, by definition, be more valuable to your life than security.

Second, I guess a guy like you must not support the military at all. Every military person sacrifices some of their freedom to give us security. Former President Trump has said that the soldiers who died in battle defending our country were “suckers” and “losers”. I guess you’d find nothing to disagree with there, right?

Third, you’re clearly referencing this Benjamin Franklin quote, but you’re misquoting it, so I’ll go ahead and quote it exactly. “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” We’re not talking about an “essential” liberty here, nor are we talking about “a little temporary” safety. We’re talking about an unimportant liberty and long-lasting safety.

And it’s not just your safety. You’re willing to sacrifice the safety of every American citizen, not for your liberty, but because you have a toy that you like to play with, and you like to pretend like you could use your toys to defend yourself, when the truth is that you’re unlikely to ever run into a situation like that, and it’s even unlikelier that you’d have such a situation were there decent gun control laws. You’re like a person who buys a lottery ticket and starts maxing out your credit card because you think it’s likely you’re going to win. But it’s actually absurdly unlikely.

You’re optimizing for an unlikely situation at the cost of a known likely situation. It’s insanity.

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8 points

Unless having it puts you at higher risk of suicide, in which case maybe don’t have it.

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10 points

You’re more likely to injury or kill yourself or family than an intruder, so there’s that too.

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1 point

That’s why I’d like a gun collective. They’re kept access controlled, and have a range and an ammo loading rig and some cleaning stations and earplugs and stuff. That way not only would I have access to well-maintained guns and ammo in a SHTF scenario, but I’d also have a place to get good without keeping them at home.

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