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Comment by agar | Hacker News Reader

> The only thing that could possibly give the gun-control people what they really want is total confiscation of all guns

Strawmen are so unhelpful in reasonable debate.

Not all gun control advocates are either anti-second amendment, nor in favor of eliminating all guns. To say otherwise, creating a false black/white dichotomy in the gun debate, does a massive disservice to both gun advocates and gun control proponents.

Ironically, by making the choice "all guns" or "no guns", gun advocates themselves are forcing the "no guns" option to the center of the debate. As a wave of frustrated anti-gun youth become voters and reasonable political moderates look at options to "protect the children", I really think it's in gun proponents' best interests to provide a better alternative than "do nothing" on one side and "civil war" on the other.

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It ceases to be a strawman when it's on a sign held by protestors acting in good faith[1].

At the end of the day, these stances, even the "moderate" ones you mention, are irreconcilable all the way down to first principles. If you are for gun control, you are necessarily for measures that will restrict the right to bear arms as it is recognized today, some more, some less, but restrictions on the right all the same.

There's no real evading that.

[1] https://pics.me.me/yes-i-do-want-to-take-away-youur-guns-you...

agar said that not all gun control advocates want to repeal the second amendment, not that there aren't any gun control advocates who want to repeal the second amendment.

Of course some gun control advocates want a "we've come to collect your guns" law. I never said that no one holds extreme positions.

But that does not mean that everyone holds extreme positions, which is what you claimed.

Arguing that the extremes are the only options is a problem.

How productive would health debates be if the only two options presented were veganism and paleo? If the only sex ed options are abstinence or polyamory?

There must be room for compromise, or there is no debate, only argumentation.

The problem is that the "compromise" touted by gun control advocates is entirely one-sided - more restrictions, no concessions. No quid-pro-quo, only further restrictions on the right.

That's not compromise, that's capitulation.

This leads to an honest question on my part:

What concessions would gun rights advocates accept in order to allow some restrictions? What's there left to give on this issue that wouldn't undermine any controls.

Say, for example, I wanted gun owners/users to be required to be as responsible as car users, i.e. pass a test, maintain a license and registration for weapons and weapon users, and hold liability insurance to cover damage either intentional or accidental (that would obviously scale with the likelihood and amount of damage the gun can do). What can gun control advocates give that will get that done?

I think part of the reason the gun debate can be one sided from the "control" side is that the US already is quite far to the "rights" side of the spectrum, relative to the rest of the developed world. It can be difficult to see where we could plausibly move further in that direction without causing more of the problems we're (hopefully) all trying to solve: unnecessary bloodshed.

In your example, since we now have a mandatory testing/licensing scheme and insurance, I see no reason why CCW's countrywide shouldn't become shall-issue. There should also be a stipulation that licensing is a thing you grant to people, not individual weapons.

Another example I floated in previous threads is surfacing psychological issues in NICS checks (stuff like certain diseases or involuntary holds) and granting access to that system to everyday people rather than just retailers.

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