Hey Kos, your response did come off as reasonable, but so did Dave's. If you're going to engage, you have to expect a response, and while online tone is hard to interpret sometimes, I can assure you, Dave's response to you was not a shout.
It's pretty common for this pattern to emerge and I think it's a big obstacle in the conversation. Someone makes a point for gun control using school shootings and assault rifles as an example, and a responsible gun owner, usually a hunter, counters with a reasoned argument about how their type of guns and use isn't the problem. But that was never the target of the original point, so the conversation devolves - very quickly - away from reasoned argument and response because neither side is actually listening anymore.
Of course mental health is a huge issue here. If you've had any firsthand experiences with that (you or someone you know) which is likely, you also know that that is probably the hardest variable to address. Most gun control advocates would want mental health to be addressed as well, but there are so many things that would help, that advocating for one does not mean ignoring another. Mental health reform, background checks, restricted availability to some users (criminal records, no-fly list, etc), de-legalization of some gun and ammo classes (ones NOT used for things like hunting or self-defense)...ALL of these things need to happen, and ALL of them will contribute to making these mass shootings less likely to happen, or mitigate their severity. NONE of those things will get in the way of the ability of a responsible gun owner to shoot or hunt as they are now.
But the conversation is being controlled by the NRA. And, quite frankly, probably also the Russians.
March 7, 2018, 8:08 a.m. - Pete Roggeman
Hey Kos, your response did come off as reasonable, but so did Dave's. If you're going to engage, you have to expect a response, and while online tone is hard to interpret sometimes, I can assure you, Dave's response to you was not a shout. It's pretty common for this pattern to emerge and I think it's a big obstacle in the conversation. Someone makes a point for gun control using school shootings and assault rifles as an example, and a responsible gun owner, usually a hunter, counters with a reasoned argument about how their type of guns and use isn't the problem. But that was never the target of the original point, so the conversation devolves - very quickly - away from reasoned argument and response because neither side is actually listening anymore. Of course mental health is a huge issue here. If you've had any firsthand experiences with that (you or someone you know) which is likely, you also know that that is probably the hardest variable to address. Most gun control advocates would want mental health to be addressed as well, but there are so many things that would help, that advocating for one does not mean ignoring another. Mental health reform, background checks, restricted availability to some users (criminal records, no-fly list, etc), de-legalization of some gun and ammo classes (ones NOT used for things like hunting or self-defense)...ALL of these things need to happen, and ALL of them will contribute to making these mass shootings less likely to happen, or mitigate their severity. NONE of those things will get in the way of the ability of a responsible gun owner to shoot or hunt as they are now. But the conversation is being controlled by the NRA. And, quite frankly, probably also the Russians.