A number of pro-gun rights Republicans pushed back on the administration’s argument that Alex Pretti was dangerous because he had a gun. Pretti was legally licensed to carry one.
A war of words over deeply held beliefs erupted on the political right in the hours after a federal agent shot and killed Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street Saturday, pitting top officials in Donald Trump’s administration against Second Amendment defenders in his electoral base.
At the core of the debate is that Pretti — who was permitted to carry a gun in public in Minnesota — had a concealed firearm on his person that eyewitness videos show federal agents apparently discovering and removing during the altercation that led to his death. Videos do not appear to show Pretti holding the weapon during that confrontation.
Kristi Noem sought to justify the killing by asserting at a news conference that Pretti “attacked those officers, had a weapon on him, and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers coming, brandishing like that and impeding their work that they were doing.” No evidence has been provided to back up this account.
Why should citizens be allowed to legally own firearms? Best reasons I can conjure up: to engage in subsistence hunting, if that’s their thing. Self defense, either from other humans with bad intentions or large wild/feral animals. Target shooting as recreation. Ensuring the collectively armed citizenry can defend itself against an unlawful tyrant threatening national values and founding principles.
I would personally prefer to live in a world where everyone respects everyone else’s rights to life, liberty, and property and there are no reasons at all for firearms to exist, so they don’t and absolutely no one has one.
But I don’t live in that world. I live in a world where people cheat, steal, maim, and kill. It would be nice to have an impenetrable forcefield protecting me from harm, but I don’t have that, either. So, the next best thing, is a way to level the playing field. To ensure the smallest, least physically-imposing person can be every bit as lethal as the largest bad motherfucker intent on causing harm. I think that’s the central idea as shared by The Cornered Cat.
Edit: I guess another reason would be to make an armed country harder to invade by another country. The would-be invader may think twice before laying feet upon the armed country’s soil, knowing the likelihood of a strong underground and guerrilla tactics.
So fear. Got it.
Did you just not read the first and second paragraph?
Well the hunting bullshit was an intentional attempt to legitimize owning a gun when in reality you don’t have to shoot a vegetable.
I guess you could take it as that but also I feel like it is a legitimate reason to own a gun. Especially because I personally know people that do actually hunt as a way to put food on the table. Being vegetarian is perfectly valid and a good choice and everything but also shouldn’t be forced on everyone. And honestly hunting is more ethical than buying meat from the grocery store or whatever, and much more of the animal gets used if you do it right.
But even if you completely disregard hunting, what about target shooting for sport?
The hunters you know exclusively hunt to survive? And don’t get started with the ethics of meat consumption bullshit. No creature deserves death because you like the taste of their flesh. End of discussion.
Can a football kill someone?
Not exclusively to survive, but to allow their family to have a cheap protein source, and they probably would financially struggle even more if they couldn’t hunt.
Animals die all the time to provide food for other creatures, and I would rather the animal have a good life out in the wilderness doing whatever it wants and then being quickly and painlessly killed than grown on a farm with little freedom for a couple years and then butchered. Also, then you can pay the proper respects to the animal for it’s flesh and you have to be the one to kill it not abstracting that away by buying it in a store. I understand not thinking any creature deserves to die but there are levels of nuance and levels of how ethical meat is to consume beyond that.
Also, yeah a football probably could kill someone if you kicked it at their head hard enough and they didn’t have a helmet. A baseball definitely could if thrown by a professional pitcher. Not sure what relevance that has
That’s your reason for not owning or wanting others to own firearms isn’t it? Fear? Are we a hypocrite?
I’m afraid of all the people that own guns now because their fear puts others in danger. Other countries with strict gun laws or even bans out rank the US in safety. How odd…
Sounds irrational.
Yeah sane thoughts tend to seem that way to insane people.
Fear seems like a legitimate reason to me. Plenty of things to be fearful of out there.