From comments to this post (http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2009/01/gun-nuts-exposed-at-distorting-data-and.html, h/t SayUncle):
Canada is a plenty free country.
REALLY now. I'm sure Mark Steyn would beg to differ. One wonders why these people don't just move their asses to Canada if they think it's such a great place to live. God knows they'd be among some like-minded people (and that was tongue-in-cheek, before anyone gets their knickers in a knot). I did find it enlightening that they resorted back to the old social utility argument, i.e., that by and large guns' social cost outweighs their social utility. Of course when you think about it that's really the only argument these people have, and L. Neil Smith at least once did a masterful job of showing the folly of relying on studies and of pointing out, as he put it, that "the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right -- subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility." And, of course, they made it all into a left vs. right issue. Often I wonder if the new class of liberals here will ever break out of that mindset. Almost as often I do not think they ever will. I hope they do, as I would love to see the issue of self-defense be something that both the left and the right agree on. Recognizing and respecting the right of self-defense, and the right to procure, own and carry the best tools to effect said defense, is the only moral and right thing to do. I loved this comment from that post, so much so that I'll close with it:
"Those of you that blanket-malign law abiding gun owners because it does not agree with your idea of utopia are so deeply ignorant of what it means to have liberty that I think you deserve none of it."
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