4 ms·
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
by maest 7y ago
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.
- cwkoss 7y agoI 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.