The erosion of critical thinking
By Tom Quiner
I saw this meme on Facebook this morning posted by a friend:
My response:
The intent of gun ownership is self-defense, to protect the lives of family members; the intent of human abortion is to take the life of a family member.
The group, by the way, calls themselves ‘Americans against the Republican Party.’ A better name: ‘Americans against the Constitution.’
Also, I don’t think outlawing abortion will prevent abortions, it will just irrationalize them and discourage them. If people want something bad enough, they can get it. If people want illegal guns bad enough, they will get them. If people want an illegal abortion bad enough, they will get one.
Frankly, an abortion is just as bad as any shooting that takes the life of a child.
Also, I’m not in favor of outlawing abortions. It’s not ethical to scream “Personal Liberties!” about outlawing guns and then reverse the position about abortions. I’m not in favor of outlawing abortions, I’m in favor of not paying for them. It would be unheard-of to force people who disagree with guns to buy guns for others, but it seems just fine to force people who disagree with abortions to buy abortions for others.
Apparently.
Oliver, I agree with your assessment on the inconsistent position of liberals on the gun issue. Regarding abortion, either the person in the womb is a human being or not. If she is, she should be protected by the 14th Amendment. I believe she is, just as you and I gained personhood at conception. Thanks for writing.
You can say that about any evil in society, though. Outlawing rape does not prevent rape; it just attaches a penalty for committing that act. Outlawing murder doesn’t prevent murder, outlawing theft doesn’t prevent theft, etc. If something is a great evil in our society, like rape, murder, theft, and yes, abortion, there should be laws that dictate what the punishment for committing these acts will be. Laws do not prevent crime, they punish it.
As well as attaching punishment, it would be our government saying, “We don’t endorse the murder of children. It’s not ethical.” I entirely agree.
Laws can’t prevent crime, but they can reduce its frequency. There are fewer rapes, robberies, murders, and kidnappings than there would be if those things were not illegal. And the ability to put rapists, robbers, murderers, and kidnappers in prison further reduces the frequency of crime. If we could put abortionists in prison for killing babies, a lot fewer babies would be killed.
There are not 400 million abortions sitting in desk drawers, just waiting for the right moment.
One million people are killed each from human abortion compared to 30,000 by guns: a 33 to one ratio. There is no comparison. The violence of human abortion is staggering. It is inhumane.
I cannot help but think it would be a win-win situation if guns were outlawed or at least restricted to who owns them and abortion was handled in a similar way it would help prevent innocent people who die from the use of firearms and allow many of those innocent lives who would be lost to abortion to live.
Problem with that is that in reality, when there are stricter gun laws, gun violence often goes UP, because criminals aren’t going to abide by laws anyway, and you will only be disarming those who wish to defend themselves. If you look at our cities with the strictest gun laws, you also see those with the worst gun violence: Chicago, New York, Detroit, Washington DC, Los Angeles, etc.
In Australia in 1996 gun law reforms made after the Port Arthur massacre making guns and licences not easy to obtain and we have not only reduced massacres and suicides but also the chance of the bad tempered drug induced or drunk idiot from having a gun to be able to randomly shoot at his neighbour because they had an argument or the irresponsible gun owner who leaves his loaded firearm in a place that kids can access. I understand criminals will get guns under any circumstances, however they should be more difficult to obtain.
All I can say is that whatever is done about both issues can only be an improvement.
Laws and red tape reduce the number of people wanting to do or buy something and will reduce the number of firearm owners. Many of the mentally unstable will be identified before they have the chance to buy a firearm and if you have to register your firearm in your name, have a proper security safe and complete a firearms safety course to obtain a licence to own a firearm the owners will reduce and crime rates must eventually come down over time.