Does freedom trump public safety concerns?

[AZ Progressive]

It seems that right wingers, especially libertarians, seem to believe this. That all the casualties from guns is just "collateral damage" from the result of "being a nation of freedom" of which it is really not (try not making money or not paying your taxes and see if you still have freedom.)

Should many people (that aren't in the military and didn't sign up to defend our freedoms) have to die just to supposedly retain our exceptional amounts of freedom?

Why should a disgruntled person with a few loose screws have the freedom to buy a gun and terminate the lives of as many people as he possibly can?

[Fred Sanders]

1. Not when it is brown people with a gun or clever brown video propagandists half a world away.

Then there is a fire sale on freedom.

[Shandris]

2. It's an interesting question, really. And one we, as a nation, need to answer.

How much IS too much freedom? What does freedom even mean? In what direction is freedom to be applied? Once, everyone was free to carry weapons and it was expected that men knew how to defend against those weapons. This was the case when much of the world was free of big cities. Now, a large number of people are 'free' from having to know how to defend themselves...sort of. But they've passed the responsibility of it on. Now, thats not necessarily a bad thing but before they can realistically do that, they need to make sure everyone else is wanting to go along with that. Democracy and all that.

Unfortunately, they're not. So, which 'freedom' is being enforced? One person's freedom from responsibility to defend, or the other's freedom to carry (which the responsibility is predicated on, naturally)? I think there's a good debate to be had there and I really think it will work out better for our side (in terms of an Overton window, so to speak) if we take that approach.

If you can't browbeat them into submission and you can't simply use the media to repeat 'Youre wrong' ad nauseum, then it's time to engage in legitimate debate. Something we used to do, as a people, but over the last 30 years or so that's gone the way of the dodo (particularly in the last 5 or so). The downside of that approach is that we can lose. As in it's theoretically possible (but I sure wouldn't count on it!).

EDIT: 'Free of big cities' might also be termed 'population spread out more'. The point is that even smaller nations weren't so packed like they are today.