Keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics and felons is a good idea; once you go beyond that you need to have a good reason.
Do crazy people and ex-cons not have a right to self-defense?
I'm just curious as to why you would single them out.
Lets agree that crazy and ex-con are a huge overlapping population because we nowadays use prisons to warehouse people who used to be in mental institutions. People who have the misfortune to fall into these 2 categories are more likely to initiate use of violence than others. As such, it doesn't make sense to give them guns.
Well, if we're simply going to limit it based on percentages, on the chance that they
might initiate violence, Men are statistically more likely to initiate violence than women, so perhaps we should simply ban all men from owning weapons. No, we cannot base it on statistical risk, for down that road lies madness.
Is there anything inherent in these two groups which makes it
certain that they will, if provided with the means of defense, turn it upon their fellowman? Certainly there is a higher risk in the mentally unstable doing that, and an increased, but lesser, risk from the previously violent individuals. But nothing that makes it certain.
Now, thankfully, our modern economy provides a means to manage risk, to socialize it while focusing more of the cost on those individuals performing risky behaviors and less on those avoiding them. This means, of course, is the insurance industry. A previously violent individual would have increased insurance premiums, and they would further increase if he were to purchase a weapon. Likewise, to a much greater degree, with a mentally unstable person. These premiums would likely decrease over time, as they showed themselves capable of owning a firearm without initiating violence. If the risk was too great, the insurance company could refuse to insure the person if he were to purchase a firearm, and this would provide incentive to avoid that purchase.
I suspect the argument is, "But if anyone can own a gun, what if someone goes on a rampage?!"
Whomever owns the weapons makes the rules. All who disagree get shot/stabbed/stoned. If anyone can produce evidence of the opposite occurring, I'll be a monkey's uncle.
Even the average girl can overpower a man with no arms and legs. I hope.
while it's true muscle mass wise women are smaller than men anyone who has fighting experience will tell you that muscle strength by itself is never always the deciding factor since there are so many different factors that go off when something happens, never mind the fact that women have been recorded lifting up cars due to adrenaline because a family member or child is trapped underneath. I will agree though that technology has always levelled out the battlefield for the perceived weak When it came to medieval times it used to be knights on horseback that ruled everything, then normal people started developing longbows and the like to take down opponents that otherwise would run them down.
