Guns and the dumb. . .

Just got into a argument via a music listserv with a guy who was saying that gun control has done more harm than good, historically (he of course gave no actual historical data for this argument).

He went into the classic "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" (further elaborating that "only bad people kill people with guns") mode, and then topped it all by adding, "Saying guns kill people is like saying your pencil misspelled a word."

I was going to avoid this argument until that line, which made me respond:

Well, kind of. . . except in the case of the misspelled word, no one is dead, or crippled and left shitting into a bag for life. I don't think this exactly qualifies as a semantic argument. Guns kill people. Bullets kill people. Knives kill people. Alcohol kills people. Cars kill people.

Saying that they don't is like saying a bad thought in someone's head made their hand do something that made a bullet appear in someone's skull. Wait, that is what you're saying.

Call a spade a spade.

His reply:

I just think gun control has proven itself to do more harm than good and
people have the right to defend themselves. Like with cuba, the government
has all of the guns, and the citizens dont. who is in control in that
situation? The government should fear its citizens and citizens shouldn't
fear the government.

My follow-up:

Well, I work in a hospital (when we get someone in here who has been shot, they generally call it a "gunshot wound" rather than "a bad person collaborated with an instrument of death to place a chunk of metal in this boy's spine") and generally, it's other citizens and not the government who have put bullets into the heads, bellies and hearts of these kids.

How did anyone ever handle their government before the invention of gunpowder?

And where are these gun nuts now that the government is getting thousands of citizens killed in this war?

Seems like the only thing they ever get up in arms about is their right to bear arms.

Caller: Oh, dear god, please, send an ambulance NOW.
911 Operator: What seems to be the problem, sir?
Caller: It was a bad person.
911: A bad person. . . what?
Caller: It's not important. A bad person hurt me.
911: Hurt you with what, sir?
Caller: He used a gun.
911: You've been shot, then.
Caller: That part is not important. What's important is that he was bad.
911: That's probably debatable, depending on the situation, or course. Anyway, he shot you with a gun?
Caller: What are you, retarded? That's like saying his pencil misspelled a word!