Sonya]
Sonya]So, to understand the anti-gun control argument, because we cannot completely prevent an evil, we no longer take measures to mitigate it?
Understand that you don't mitigate the problem by taking away law abiding citizens means to defend themselves. Criminals act outside of the law so what will further legislation accomplish?
This misses the point. My question is whether you would support preventative measures that were effective at reducing the occurrence or severity of some attacks, but did not completely eliminate the problem.
Your response was essentially that (1) because criminals act outside the law, they would presumably be able to evade some preventative measures, rendering them ineffective, and/or (2) that there are no possible preventative measures.
But that still does not answer my question. Would you be willing to adopt effective, preventative measures? Or do you believe that there is nothing we can and/or should do to prevent these attacks? The same basic questions apply to the "will" versus the "means" argument.
And I'm just curious. I really don't care one way or the other re: gun control. But I think saying that you treat the "will" and ignore the "means" is similar to saying you don't outlaw driving under the influence -- you treat substance abuse instead. If you want to eliminate or reduce the problem, you do both.
