>Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.
Not to detract from your excellent point but when it comes to personal defense against crime, this applies to everyone who doesn't have private security. Even if the police are 100% on your side, they can't help you if they aren't at your side. When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.
I agree. Similarly, most people who live in rural areas also have a need for guns to protect themselves adequately - from animals as well as malicious people - as police and other state protection can be an hour or more away when they try to respond rapidly.
I prefer to focus on the Black Panthers use case because there is an interesting cognitive dissonance in the modern left in that anti-racism and gun control are both promoted by the same ideological groups. Tends to be more persuasive in my liberal social bubble as I see a growing lack of empathy for rural Americans.
My personal litmus test for gun control legislation is: "Would this law meaningfully decrease access for a black single mother who is a victim of domestic violence and does not have confidence in a timely police response?"
As a Canadian, I’m always confused at how safe Americans think a gun makes them when in the woods.
Guns are not a good defence against many wild animals. Get some bear spray, it is dramatically more effective and will not kill somebody as easily if you accidentally shoot a person in the dark!
In New Jersey, bear spray is also illegal (or it was when I last lived there, 6 years ago). And this is in a state that acknowledges that there's a problem with bear overpopulation.
I have witnessed a teen use bear spray in a fight that took place outside of tim hortons between 20 teens and an (Not naming) Food delivery service driver in their mid 40's. The guy was screaming on the floor for an hour. The Police considered it as a weapon.
Under Canadian law, pretty much anything that can be used as a weapon is illegal to carry for use as a weapon. If that fight was in a wooded area where carrying bear spray was a reasonable precaution against bears, there would be no crime. The weapon offense was for carrying bear spray with the primary intention of using it on people.
what are you talking about? As described, it was the teens who had the weapon - you'd rather they were carrying guns in that situation rather than bear spray? If that's so, I don't want to live in your world.
Yeah, I think bear spray is usually a more appropriate form of defense against animal attacks: in addition to effectiveness, when humans go to their 'home' it is unfair for animals' natural defense or feeding behaviors to cause their deaths.
Even despite the dark, you can attach a flashlight to your firearm that allows you to quickly identify the target before shooting at it. Most modern guns have that capability.
Your litmus test is interesting - why focus on that single group of people?
Maybe another litmus test should be "does this meaningfully decrease access to guns for a person who is planning a mass shooting?"
I don't have any stats, and I suspect more single black women die than people at the hand of mass shooters, but you see my point - it's a game of tradeoffs and focusing on a single dimension is myopic.
I don't think your litmus test is particularly useful because any gun control regulation would serve this purpose, so it allows for throwing out the good for the sake of the bad.
It is certainly somewhat arbitrary, but I think it functions as an example of a group that is often physically disadvantaged vs attackers, institutionally disenfranchised, and has reasonable apprehension at the idea of relying on police protection.
Similarly, I like to think about economic legislation in terms of "how would this law affect the chances that a child born into the poorest neighborhood will one day become wealthy?". I think by framing it in a way that lets me imagine a hypothetical individual who is currently least-empowered, it allows me to consider things with a bit more empathy as I can imagine myself in their shoes rather than abstractly thinking about groups. Its hard to reason about fairly balancing many concerns of many groups with various levels of power simultaneously, so I think iteratively looking for laws that would empower the least-empowered can function as a sort of shorthand for moral reasoning.
Not to detract from your excellent point but when it comes to personal defense against crime, this applies to everyone who doesn't have private security. Even if the police are 100% on your side, they can't help you if they aren't at your side. When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.