The Rude Pundit on gun laws.

Image from Warner Bros

He makes a lot of sense as usual. Excerpts:

Countries that have banned guns have not become lawless wastelands where dictatorial Kenyan Muslims put them in forced labor concentration camps. One oft-cited statistic is that Japan only had two gun deaths last year. Let’s put that in perspective. We have about 2.5 times the number of people as Japan in the United States. That means 5-6 gun deaths for our 310 million people. Twirl that around your brain for a minute or two.

You own a weapon. You own a thing that is meant to kill people. Respect that. Respect that society has a stake in making sure that your mechanism of death isn’t used stupidly or criminally. Statistically, you will never get the chance to be a hero. You will never stop a mass shooting. In fact, pretty much everyone who ever did stop one was a trained police or security officer or ex-military.

You might hate speed limits because you know you can drive fast safely. But all it takes is one person not as skilled as you believe you are to spin out and kill a whole bunch of us. If you speed a lot and get caught, you get your license taken away.  All you gotta do is respect the speed limit, and you can drive as much as you want.

Gun laws exist not to deny you anything, but to protect the rest of us.