Most countries in the world get by with no civilian (or very few) guns.
I don’t think that’s relevant, because we, in the US, have 250 years of recognizing that it is an individual right to be keep and bear arm; other countries don’t even recognize an individual right to self defense, and I would hope that we would agree that’s morally repugnant. Relatively speaking, very few countries have real, robust protections for free speech and political discourse, and I would hope that we would agree that protections for speech–even speech that is revolting to all sense of morality–need to be protected in order for democracy–such as it is–to remain even remotely functional.
If we’re looking at overall harms, banning IC engines entirely would do far more to address global mortality rates than ending civilian ownership.
If we want to reduce the harms of guns, specifically, then rather than eliminating a civil right, why not address the conditions that cause people to engage in violence? If you remove the tool, rather than correcting the underlying cause, then you simply shift the means of violence rather than reducing or eliminating it. Even countries with fairly high individual firearm ownership–Switzerland, Finland–have very low rates of violence, because they simply don’t have the same underlying problems that we seem to celebrate in the US.
That’s where I get so hung up; you wouldn’t treat pneumonia with cough syrup, you’d treat it with antibiotics. Treat the disease, and the symptoms go away on their own. And the great part is, if you treat the disease, the all of America is a nicer place.
section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence for a person to use “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviours that causes, or is likely to cause, another person harassment, alarm or distress”. This law also includes language that is deemed to incite “racial and religious hatred” as well as “hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation” and language that “encourages terrorism”.
I’m sure you’d agree in a civilised society there’s no need to go around threatening people, or being abusive towards people based on their race, religion, or sexual orientation. After all the US’ very foundation was to escape religious persecution!
As for the prevalence of violence in the US vs Switzerland, yeah fair enough. If you can change the underlying culture, good on you! However, a gun will kill a lot of people a lot faster than a car or knife!
I don’t think that’s relevant, because we, in the US, have 250 years of recognizing that it is an individual right to be keep and bear arm; other countries don’t even recognize an individual right to self defense, and I would hope that we would agree that’s morally repugnant. Relatively speaking, very few countries have real, robust protections for free speech and political discourse, and I would hope that we would agree that protections for speech–even speech that is revolting to all sense of morality–need to be protected in order for democracy–such as it is–to remain even remotely functional.
If we’re looking at overall harms, banning IC engines entirely would do far more to address global mortality rates than ending civilian ownership.
If we want to reduce the harms of guns, specifically, then rather than eliminating a civil right, why not address the conditions that cause people to engage in violence? If you remove the tool, rather than correcting the underlying cause, then you simply shift the means of violence rather than reducing or eliminating it. Even countries with fairly high individual firearm ownership–Switzerland, Finland–have very low rates of violence, because they simply don’t have the same underlying problems that we seem to celebrate in the US.
That’s where I get so hung up; you wouldn’t treat pneumonia with cough syrup, you’d treat it with antibiotics. Treat the disease, and the symptoms go away on their own. And the great part is, if you treat the disease, the all of America is a nicer place.
The UK most definitely recognises a right to self defense.
It also has laws covering free speech, and the limitations, such as offensive or hateful language - https://care.org.uk/cause/freedom-of-speech/free-speech-law
I’m sure you’d agree in a civilised society there’s no need to go around threatening people, or being abusive towards people based on their race, religion, or sexual orientation. After all the US’ very foundation was to escape religious persecution!
As for the prevalence of violence in the US vs Switzerland, yeah fair enough. If you can change the underlying culture, good on you! However, a gun will kill a lot of people a lot faster than a car or knife!