So I’m from Canada, and I genuinely would like to understand your thought process on not wanting gun control. Not for a fight, not to debate, just to understand your side in relation to things like the high prevalence of school shootings in the states, accidental deaths associated with improperly stored guns, and the belief that having a gun in the home is self defence if it has to be locked away in a safe if there are children present. I’m not against guns, I don’t personally own one but many of my friends own hunting rifles and I’ve shot them before. Just curious about it, if you’ll indulge me :)
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, things got hectic today after work. Anyway, you said you're just looking for the other perspective and not a debate or fight, so I'll be speaking freely without hunting down sources. If you get curious about details, I'm sure I (or someone in the notes) can grab sources for you later.
First thing to keep in mind is that mass shooting incidents are highly played up in the media. Sometimes it's because outlets have ulterior motives due to their political biases, but a lot of the time it's just a case of "If it bleeds, it leads." If you look at the actual numbers, you see that any number of daily chores or tasks is more dangerous than the much inflated threat of a psychotic mass murderer. Because of this, I think anyone that wants to change our laws and start restricting civil liberties to combat some "epidemic" of mass gun violence is misinformed at best or deliberately fear mongering at worst.
As far as accidental discharges etc go I think this should be combated by de-mystifying guns for kids from a young age. I'm sure lots of the anti-gun crowd are mortified by pictures of school kids learning to cycle a bolt action, but this kind of widespread gun safety could massively reduce the number of accidents.
More than that, I think it would help eliminate the mystique and "forbidden" aura that guns carry for some people. You've almost definitely seen videos where people are waving a gun with their finger on the trigger while they lip sync to some song. The gun fires into their wall or their phone, they drop the gun, then they stand there with a look on their face like, "How could this have happened?" People that make these videos, or similarly unsafe photos or real life stunts, are doing it to try to look cool. But if everyone grows up knowing how guns operate and having that exposure, it no longer seems "cool" to do these things any more than it would be "Cool" to show off you have a pair of scissors.
That also addresses the children issue somewhat. My extended family has lots of rural folk in it, lots of farmers and hunters. All my cousins grew up around guns and everyone in the family knew to respect them as tools. I'd still recommend taking the necessary safety precautions when you have kids around, but once again the kid that finds a gun in a shoebox and decides to have a private show and tell session is doing it because they think this is taboo and the other kids will be impressed. Make it mundane, you've made it boring.
I realize those last two veered more into personal opinion and a suggestion on one way you could reduce incidents, and it's late here so I might not be communicating the point well to begin with. But really, overall my point remains that America isn't the bath full blood and spent casings certain pundits would like to paint it as, and I value liberty above all else, so I'm unwilling to curtail any of it to give people a false sense of security. This is especially true when we regularly see studies and data pointing out that the more restrictive local and state measures in deep blue areas either has no effect or an undesirable affect on gun crime, or studies showing private citizens are more effective than the police at stopping mass shootings, or that conceal carry rates went up and crime rates tanked. None of those things support the idea that reducing gun ownership rates will result in a safer society, and certainly not good enough to curtail our rights.
I'm sorry if my reply got a bit rambly here. As mentioned before it fell off my radar earier in the day and now that I am replying it's late enough I'm starting to feel the urge to doze off between sentences. I hope you got something out of it anyway. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have further questions!
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