>[...]about one school shooting or mass shooting every two days proves that at least one member of the species isn't uniformly ready to have firearms.
I often see comments online descending into the argument about firearms. Besides the potential number of people hurt/killed, what's the difference between someone walking into a school with a gun versus one walking into a school with a knife? Or a sharpened spear (from other comments in the thread)?
In many ways, I think a knife could be worse. You can hurt/kill a lot of people very quietly with a knife, leaving most of the school none the wiser. They're easier to conceal, easier to make from non-metallic substances (and thus can be easier to sneak past metal detectors.) I imagine people would be a lot less concerned about a knife collection than a gun collection, etc etc.
I don't disagree with your comment about someone not being ready for a firearm. However, I think that the argument that we're not recognizing the dangers of "gun free" zones as potential targets (by at least one statistic, 94% of mass shootings in the US happen in a "gun free" zone) and mitigating that danger in a meaningful way actually supports your point about syncophantic AIs better.
> Besides the potential number of people hurt/killed, what's the difference between someone walking into a school with a gun versus one walking into a school with a knife?
Yeah, and what's the difference between cutting a slice of bread and dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima?
Scale, it's scale. Scale matters, you can't hand wave it. If you try to, then you go to some very dumb, obviously wrong conclusions.
Everything, and I do mean everything, can be used for evil. But we don't allow everything, and for good reason.
Well that just doesn't make sense because I was told that guns don't kill people, people do. So why would they only injure, not kill, someone just because they only had a knife? /s
I often see comments online descending into the argument about firearms. Besides the potential number of people hurt/killed, what's the difference between someone walking into a school with a gun versus one walking into a school with a knife? Or a sharpened spear (from other comments in the thread)?
In many ways, I think a knife could be worse. You can hurt/kill a lot of people very quietly with a knife, leaving most of the school none the wiser. They're easier to conceal, easier to make from non-metallic substances (and thus can be easier to sneak past metal detectors.) I imagine people would be a lot less concerned about a knife collection than a gun collection, etc etc.
I don't disagree with your comment about someone not being ready for a firearm. However, I think that the argument that we're not recognizing the dangers of "gun free" zones as potential targets (by at least one statistic, 94% of mass shootings in the US happen in a "gun free" zone) and mitigating that danger in a meaningful way actually supports your point about syncophantic AIs better.