General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Hollywood's depiction of guns is fraudulent, says Dustin Hoffman [View all]JohnnyRingo
(18,626 posts)First it's ban movies with guns, then look to book banning that we might prevent the murder of '60s icons. Ban cigarettes to protect people from themselves, and maybe we should put a filter on speech so hate can't be spread on the airwaves and internet. Ban fast food restaurants to keep Americans heart happy and thin.
Pretty soon everything you personally don't like is banned from our free society, and you can live in harmony with the 99% of Americans who agree with you 100% of the time. Unfortunately that doesn't work. Eventually, someone will want to ban something you enjoy. Perhaps it'll be coffee, chocolate, or soda, but statistics can lie and you'll suddenly find that you're actually in a smaller group than you were led to believe.
Your statistics on smoking is misleading for instance. Pehaps it's 90% of the people you know. Indeed, one in five adults do currently still smoke. Though that percentage is on a downward trend it doesn't count those under 18 years of age. Others misuse statistics to back their beliefs as well. When the American Cancer Society cite figures that prove cigarettes kill, they count all lung cancer cases in the US as cigarette related deaths. If they're non-smokers, then it must be second hand tobacco smoke. The truth is, sometimes it's our environment. Sometimes people are born with a cancer gene.
Cigarettes aren't healthy by any stretch, but pumping up stats to enact legislation is a double edged sword. Someday someone will use them to ban something you think is acceptable. Be it gambling, drinking, riding a motorcycle, or even skydiving, everything is up for grabs in society that passes laws to protect people from themselves.
The fact you hate tobacco and guns is valid, and you've a right to your opinion, but imposing your indignations on the populace at large is selfish at least, and dictatorial at worst.
I'm really not worried about it though, because you'll never find more than a small percentage of the country that wants to uphold your demands to publicly ban movies, guns, books or cigarettes, and life in America will go on as it has for hundreds of years. Even Gabby Giffords and her husband say they wants to keep their guns, and I can't say I blame them.