The gun control debate is always super debatey but what I’ve noticed a lot lately are these terrible, horrible, no good, very bad false equivalencies often shouted with great vehemence and a complete lack of logic.
The other day I had such a “discussion” with someone online. I know, someone is wrong on the internet? I’m shocked.
But yes, I do go onto sites like the Huffington Post and feed the trolls for the specific love and purpose of getting “likes” which feel like the warm embrace of hugs my father never gave me. (Disclaimer: we are not a huggy people)
In one such encounter, I was given the comment that cars kill a lot of people and yet we don’t practice car control.
Now, before I was able to give my witty riposte of, “You’re right, may I borrow your gun to drive into work today, because my car is feeling too much like a killing machine to me today.” They said, “and don’t say that cars serve another purpose because that makes you a hypocrite!”
Aside from the fact that I don’t think hypocrite means what they think it means, I did stop to ponder what, exactly, would be hypocritical about saying that cars, uh, aren’t machines created for the purpose of putting holes in things and you can’t drive your gun to the park.
Nothing, of course. It was just another mindless miss-spew of something one of our mental giants like Rush Limbaugh might say with very little logical follow through. Just the, “oh hey, you’re right! lots of people die in car accidents, that’s totally the same thing!”
But then as I pondered this further, I discovered that there was some merit to the comparison of cars to guns. I think they’re right. We really should treat guns more like cars. Because with a car you need to:
- Test for a license
- Yearly registrations
- Yearly inspections
- Insurance
I think that’s a wonderful idea to treat guns like cars. Register each gun, each year. Take each of your guns in for inspection and proper function yearly. And have insurance on each and every gun that you own.
It’s not gun control. It’s treating guns like cars, which are pretty much the same thing anyway and if you say they’re not, you’re a HYPOCRITE.