Reply #53: let's parse that out

[iverglas]

My underlying belief is that when we offer people the responsibility of being free along with letting them be free, people learn to be responsible in their usages.
This applies to guns, drugs, abortions, and more.

Exactly what are pregnant women responsible for in making decisions about their pregnancies, and to whom are they responsible?

I'll answer that for you: nothing and nobody.

So take your ugly analogies and stick them up that gun barrel.

Of course, the other important point here is that the same actually applies to people with firearms: they are not actually responsible for anything to anybody.

Responsibility necessarily implies accountability.

I am responsible for keeping my roof clear of snow and ice; if I fail in that responsibility and someone is injured or killed by snow and ice falling from my roof, I am accountable for that.

If I am not accountable, then I have no responsibility.

Pregnant women, and you want to take very careful note of this, are not accountable for the decisions they make and the actions they take regarding their pregnancies.

And the point here is that firearms owners are also not accountable for the decisions they make and the actions they take regarding their firearms. They are accountable for crimes committed, but for nothing else.

They are not accountable for transferring their firearms to ineligible people, just for one example. They are not accountable for making their firearms accessible to unauthorized people (like children and thieves and ineligible friends and family). They are not accountable for any of a myriad of decisions they make and actions they take regarding their firearms.

And that is the entire point.

Unless you have some proposal for holding firearms owners accountable, your tired burble about "responsibility" is just fancy words for "we don't give a shit".