Previously in this series:
- “A Gun Holdup Victim on Whether He Wishes He Had Been Armed”
- “White Male Privilege”
- “A Case Against Gun Control”
- “The Cultural Roots of a Gun-Massacre Society”
- “A Veteran on the Need to Control Civilian Arms”
- “‘Show Us the Carnage,’ Continued”
- “Only in America”
- “Show Us the Carnage”
- “The Empty Rituals of an American Massacre”
and before that: - “Why the AR-15 Is So Lethal”
- “The Nature of the AR-15”
- “Why the AR-15 Was Never Meant to be in Civilian Hands”
- “More on the Military and Civilian History of the AR-15”
and - “The Certainty of More Shootings,” from back after the Aurora massacre
- “Two Dark American Truths from Las Vegas,” with included video.
This installment is a sample of the range of recent response. Note: many people have written about David French’s post explaining why he feels “safer” owning an AR-15. Since I didn’t publish that item myself, I don’t feel that I should post dissents here. Instead I have forwarded those messages to the editors of the Atlantic’s new Letters section.
Moral equivalence and hypocrisy. I’ve argued over the years that the AR-15 is a weapon designed for the military, which was never meant to be in civilian hands. Dissenting arguments fall into three main categories: slippery slope (any step toward gun regulation is really a step toward confiscation and prohibition); pointlessness (disturbed people will always find a way to kill); and hypocrisy (how can you complain about gun killings, when abortion goes on?). Here’s a representative sample from the last category:
Funny how you write about gun violence in America
Iike so many others without a hint of care about the 700,000 (yearly average) deaths of kids in this country caused by abortion. Death is final no matter how it's done, legal or not.
All arguments about gun violence are hypocritical without addressing this sad, yet legal, genocide being accomplished by those liberal progressives who cry the loudest.
No I don't own any automatic or semi-automatic gun and I am not a Republican or Conserative party member. Just a middle of the road American Citizen who thinks the pot should stop calling the kettel black!