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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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The whole Guns thing
A modern analog I like is to high grade digital encryption.
Terrorists and criminals use it, and governments want to ban it. But that doesn't actually mean it should be banned, or that people who oppose a ban are terrorists or criminals.
Totally, except regulating encryption makes much more sense because of al those encryption-violence deaths that happen daily in the US. All those kids with easy access to encryption going to school and encrypting their classmates, the policemen not intervening because they are afraid to get encrypted by the kids armed with military grade AES-512 routines.
It is a modern analog, but with its limits - all this stuff doesn’t happen in countries where encryption is much more regulated and you can’t buy encryption routines in malls.
Your comment comes off as shallow and dismissive. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but not under those conditions.
I thought @draghetta made a good point in way that wasn't particularly shallow or dismissive. Not trying to stir hostility here, just throwing in my 2 currency subunits.
To clarify, I disagree because you're both missing my point, which is to explain and help people understand, and not an argument put forward in justification of anything.
Responding to an attempt to help bridge a gap of understanding by sarcastically dismissing any value in the analogy without even attempting to understand why it's being offered is, to me, a dismissive and shallow thing to do.
I disagree.
What a shallow and dismissive thing to say
What would you suggest?
Addressing any of the points being made to you would be a great start. The first comment that you called shallow was a pretty good summary of why people support strict gun control, even if it was said sarcastically.
Their point is that there are accidental and intentional, even mass, shootings. I don't dispute this. I'm not even against reasonable gun control laws.
But this was supposed to be a discussion about understanding an American perspective. Not sarcastically deriding any attempt to do so.
So then it wasn't shallow and dismissive at all, you just didn't appreciate the delivery. The points they made were perfectly valid and, ironically, calling them shallow and dismissing was itself shallow and dismissive. It just seems more like you used a bad analogy but can't take the criticism.
Except this isn't a debate on gun control.
I'm so confused... you responded to a comment about guns and made an analogy for gun control.
If you want to understand why it's so hard to pass strong gun laws in the USA, then reasoning by analogy to the contemporary issue of strong crypto may prove helpful.
Ffs, it was joke..
Hence, "shallow and dismissive".
That's not a great analogy though... you would have to add that, even though most people use it responsibly, banning digital encryption would cause a very dramatic reduction in harm caused by the people that don't use it responsibly.
Furthermore digital encryption actually serves an inherent purpose so banning it would also cause some harm to society simultaneously. On the other hand, civilian gun ownership serves no inherent purpose so society wouldn't be harmed by banning it, and we would only lose the risk.
But but but what if they get fascists in power! What if a bunch of goons attempt a coup!
Your gun will help a lot against the military...
Yeah, but it's way harder to kill someone accidentally (or in a fit of rage) with high grade digital encryption than with a firearm.