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Agreed the above are not the same thing. Independent of what Kirk was saying at the time, he has also said "I think it’s worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of,

Agreed the above are not the same thing. Independent of what Kirk was saying at the time, he has also said "I think it’s worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal." In other words, some people are expendable (for a greater good). I also agree that killing someone with a gunshot isn't "bloodless." But the statistics are, and that's the thing about the kind of rhetoric Kirk engaged in. It's easy to birds-eye-view the problem and say things like there is a reasonable weighing of right to own a firearm vs. the inevitable result of increased firearm homicide when it is not one's own neck catching the bullet. In that sense, the statistics (and rhetoric around them) are "bloodless." Indeed, I suspect that one of the things that has made the discussion around firearm ownership in the United States increasingly charged year upon year is that as an increasing number of our friends, loved ones, and selves become the statistic of the day, the conversation cannot stay clinical and detached. Because for too many Americans, it's no longer some abstract someone somewhere who got shot that day; it's their neighbor. Or their mom. Or their kid.

zahlman 1y ago
> In other words No, that is an invalid rephrasing that misses the point. I have had this discussion numerous times already and am not interested in rehashing it. Check my comment history if you care. FWIW, I actually am from Canada and generally disagree with the premise of the Second Amendment. However, I consider it a morally consistent position, and the way that the government goes after gun owners in Canada — and in the US, actually — is a travesty. The lawmakers have entirely too little understanding of the things they seek to ban.
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  I have read one page into your responses in threads on HN and found no clarification as to how my rephrasing misses the point. I respect your lack of desire to engage on the topic and will not ask it of you, but FWIW: if you believe you are making the point that Charlie Kirk did not assert that the tradeoff of protecting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an acceptable tradeoff for the deaths of Americans in mass shootings (which implies the ones lost are expendable, at least expendable enough that we won't change the society's norms to prevent those deaths)... You are not.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > I have read one page into your responses in threads on HN and found no clarification as to how my rephrasing misses the point. I found it for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228530 If you still think this is an argument about people being "expendable", then it appears we simply disagree about what that word means.
    - shadowgovt 1y ago
      We seem to disagree about what the word means because I agree with your read on Kirk's position, above. "Kirk's moral calculus involves accepting that possibly some more people will die, beyond what would happen otherwise, in order to guarantee what he considers an essential right to everyone." ... And he was the "some more people" this week.
      - zahlman 1y ago
        >... And he was the "some more people" this week. This phrasing is simply incoherent to me. Accepting that "possibly some more people" will die, agnostic to anyone's intent, is clearly not the same as accepting a probability of being personally targeted for murder.
        shadowgovt 1y ago
        The statistics don't really care that he was personally targeted. Are you trying to draw a difference between politically-motivated assassination and random violence? I'm not. Because the violence is often not "random." Kirk was mid making that point when he was killed; he was about to debate gang-on-gang violence. Most killings in the US are targeted. Killers (even the psychotic ones) generally have a personal motivation, some self-justification to pull the trigger. The guns make it far easier to succeed than it would be otherwise. I'm giving Kirk the benefit of the doubt here. Because if what he really meant was "someone's life is the price of our freedom... But not me, I'm special, I'm doing everything right..." He wasn't misguided, he was stupid. And I don't think he was stupid. So I'm left with the wry observation that the manner of his own death was consistent with his philosophy on the necessity of gun ownership to protect essential liberties.

zahlman 1y ago

> In other words No, that is an invalid rephrasing that misses the point. I have had this discussion numerous times already and am not interested in rehashing it. Check my comment history if you care. FWIW, I actually am from Canada and generally disagree with the premise of the Second Amendment. However, I consider it a morally consistent position, and the way that the government goes after gun owners in Canada — and in the US, actually — is a travesty. The lawmakers have entirely too little understanding of the things they seek to ban.

shadowgovt 1y ago
I have read one page into your responses in threads on HN and found no clarification as to how my rephrasing misses the point. I respect your lack of desire to engage on the topic and will not ask it of you, but FWIW: if you believe you are making the point that Charlie Kirk did not assert that the tradeoff of protecting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an acceptable tradeoff for the deaths of Americans in mass shootings (which implies the ones lost are expendable, at least expendable enough that we won't change the society's norms to prevent those deaths)... You are not.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > I have read one page into your responses in threads on HN and found no clarification as to how my rephrasing misses the point. I found it for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228530 If you still think this is an argument about people being "expendable", then it appears we simply disagree about what that word means.
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    We seem to disagree about what the word means because I agree with your read on Kirk's position, above. "Kirk's moral calculus involves accepting that possibly some more people will die, beyond what would happen otherwise, in order to guarantee what he considers an essential right to everyone." ... And he was the "some more people" this week.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      >... And he was the "some more people" this week. This phrasing is simply incoherent to me. Accepting that "possibly some more people" will die, agnostic to anyone's intent, is clearly not the same as accepting a probability of being personally targeted for murder.
      - shadowgovt 1y ago
        The statistics don't really care that he was personally targeted. Are you trying to draw a difference between politically-motivated assassination and random violence? I'm not. Because the violence is often not "random." Kirk was mid making that point when he was killed; he was about to debate gang-on-gang violence. Most killings in the US are targeted. Killers (even the psychotic ones) generally have a personal motivation, some self-justification to pull the trigger. The guns make it far easier to succeed than it would be otherwise. I'm giving Kirk the benefit of the doubt here. Because if what he really meant was "someone's life is the price of our freedom... But not me, I'm special, I'm doing everything right..." He wasn't misguided, he was stupid. And I don't think he was stupid. So I'm left with the wry observation that the manner of his own death was consistent with his philosophy on the necessity of gun ownership to protect essential liberties.