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If the people who will be the "some gun deaths every single year" aren't expendable, what are they? Because it sounds like they're the ones we spend to buy the

If the people who will be the "some gun deaths every single year" aren't expendable, what are they? Because it sounds like they're the ones we spend to buy the freedoms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. As Kirk said in 2023, "Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty." If you're paying human lives for something, those lives are expendable by definition. Etymology of the word: Latin, expendere, "to pay out, weigh out." In the US, our armed citizenry is part of our liberty. This year, Charlie Kirk had the extreme misfortune to be part of the price.

zahlman 1y ago
>If the people who will be the "some gun deaths every single year" aren't expendable, what are they? They are the same as the people who die in car crashes every year, or who are poisoned by household cleaners, etc.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  The people who die in car crashes every year are certainly seen as expendable by reckless drivers.
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  ... Yes. That's the "expendable" ones: the people we're willing to sacrifice in exchange for enjoying the benefits of owning cars and household cleaners. Kirk was sacrificed to the benefit of owning guns.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > Yes. That's the "expendable" ones No. That's not how the concept works. Almost everyone believes that it is just and right that American homeowners can own cars and household cleaners. You would never comment at someone's funeral that the deceased thought that children killed in car accidents or by accidental poisoning were "expendable". If a city mayor opposed to public transit projects or bike lanes were to get run over by a hitman, I can't fathom that you would be making the same argument. > Kirk was sacrificed to the benefit of owning guns. No. He was targeted and intentionally killed, for reasons that have no demonstrated connection to the issue. This is simply not comparable to an observation that some number of unspecified people might die as a result of a policy.
    - shadowgovt 1y ago
      For what it's worth, I am actually aware of a funeral where the priest digressed into the idea that the deceased died on a road where people are known to drive recklessly and this is the expected outcome of that behavior, and prayed that the city would take the necessary steps to make that road safer so that we had fewer funerals like this one. It did not go over well with the congregation. ;) Mourners usually want to focus on the individual, not how that individual fits into a larger societal structure. > He was targeted and intentionally killed, for reasons that have no demonstrated connection to the issue. Right, you get it. > This is simply not comparable to an observation that some number of unspecified people might die as a result of a policy. ... You were so close to getting it. Your argument is like asserting that every instance of a class is its own unique thing and has no relation to the class. When the whole point of object oriented programming is that we can make sweeping changes to the behavior of instances with relatively small modifications to the class. The class is policy. The instances are deaths. Kirk was not only satisfied with but advocated for the current structure of the "GunRights" class. Then someone operating under the rules of an instance of that class killed him. It's not right that he's dead. It's not right that any of the victims of gun violence at the hands of strangers died. But in Kirk's case, one must observe that he died as predictable consequence of the political philosophy he espoused. It's just usually other people paying the price for his philosophy, not him. (Also, I'm fairly certain you know already that your mayor getting run over by a hitman metaphor breaks down because hitmen don't use cars. That's not the tool designed for killing people. There's another tool designed for killing people, one far more effective at it. Hitmen use that one.)
      - zahlman 1y ago
        > Your argument is like asserting that every instance of a class is its own unique thing and has no relation to the class. No, it is not. > one must observe that he died as predictable consequence of the political philosophy he espoused. No, one must not observe that, because his death was neither predictable (unless you think the "hex" Jezebel placed on him was real and effective) nor a consequence. You are looking at a policy enabling an act (one which existed literally for centuries before Kirk's argument), and saying that this is the same as a political philosophy causing that act. > (Also, I'm fairly certain you know already that your mayor getting run over by a hitman metaphor breaks down because hitmen don't use cars. That's not the tool designed for killing people. There's another tool designed for killing people, one far more effective at it. Hitmen use that one.) Vehicular homicide can in fact be intentional.

zahlman 1y ago

>If the people who will be the "some gun deaths every single year" aren't expendable, what are they? They are the same as the people who die in car crashes every year, or who are poisoned by household cleaners, etc.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
The people who die in car crashes every year are certainly seen as expendable by reckless drivers.
shadowgovt 1y ago
... Yes. That's the "expendable" ones: the people we're willing to sacrifice in exchange for enjoying the benefits of owning cars and household cleaners. Kirk was sacrificed to the benefit of owning guns.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > Yes. That's the "expendable" ones No. That's not how the concept works. Almost everyone believes that it is just and right that American homeowners can own cars and household cleaners. You would never comment at someone's funeral that the deceased thought that children killed in car accidents or by accidental poisoning were "expendable". If a city mayor opposed to public transit projects or bike lanes were to get run over by a hitman, I can't fathom that you would be making the same argument. > Kirk was sacrificed to the benefit of owning guns. No. He was targeted and intentionally killed, for reasons that have no demonstrated connection to the issue. This is simply not comparable to an observation that some number of unspecified people might die as a result of a policy.
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    For what it's worth, I am actually aware of a funeral where the priest digressed into the idea that the deceased died on a road where people are known to drive recklessly and this is the expected outcome of that behavior, and prayed that the city would take the necessary steps to make that road safer so that we had fewer funerals like this one. It did not go over well with the congregation. ;) Mourners usually want to focus on the individual, not how that individual fits into a larger societal structure. > He was targeted and intentionally killed, for reasons that have no demonstrated connection to the issue. Right, you get it. > This is simply not comparable to an observation that some number of unspecified people might die as a result of a policy. ... You were so close to getting it. Your argument is like asserting that every instance of a class is its own unique thing and has no relation to the class. When the whole point of object oriented programming is that we can make sweeping changes to the behavior of instances with relatively small modifications to the class. The class is policy. The instances are deaths. Kirk was not only satisfied with but advocated for the current structure of the "GunRights" class. Then someone operating under the rules of an instance of that class killed him. It's not right that he's dead. It's not right that any of the victims of gun violence at the hands of strangers died. But in Kirk's case, one must observe that he died as predictable consequence of the political philosophy he espoused. It's just usually other people paying the price for his philosophy, not him. (Also, I'm fairly certain you know already that your mayor getting run over by a hitman metaphor breaks down because hitmen don't use cars. That's not the tool designed for killing people. There's another tool designed for killing people, one far more effective at it. Hitmen use that one.)
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > Your argument is like asserting that every instance of a class is its own unique thing and has no relation to the class. No, it is not. > one must observe that he died as predictable consequence of the political philosophy he espoused. No, one must not observe that, because his death was neither predictable (unless you think the "hex" Jezebel placed on him was real and effective) nor a consequence. You are looking at a policy enabling an act (one which existed literally for centuries before Kirk's argument), and saying that this is the same as a political philosophy causing that act. > (Also, I'm fairly certain you know already that your mayor getting run over by a hitman metaphor breaks down because hitmen don't use cars. That's not the tool designed for killing people. There's another tool designed for killing people, one far more effective at it. Hitmen use that one.) Vehicular homicide can in fact be intentional.