Originally Posted by
Timinator
Indeed.
Do you agree that this is exactly what all western nations except the US have done? That previously gun-toting regions like Europe, Canada, and Australia have learned that in the modern world, where very few of us are subsistence hunters, there's very little point to owning a gun? That even in areas where gun ownership is high there are still significant regulations about how guns can be kept and obtained?
I maintain that there is a solitary route to be found via the evidence, and the philosophical concepts are easily considered and addressed, and no "insanely" authoritarian response has been required. The rest of the developed world has done it. The US has no good* reason not to follow.
Did I mis-type?
You said: "this approach [weighing up the greater good]...fucks over the individuals who don't fall in the median of the data."
I said: "Who gives a fuck?"
Seriously: what I initially said is that children cannot be trusted with guns, or cars, or the vote. If there are a few responsible children who could properly handle those things, so what? You have to allow something dangerous because it's unfair to those few? No, that's ludicrous. You can't build societies on that, you can only build hypersensitive individualists. This is not a tyranny of the majority: those few stable, wise children are not being oppressed. So I'll say it again: who gives a fuck about what a few outliers are or aren't allowed to do based on sound reasoning and application of a blanket rule?
*There are lots of stupid reasons.