Reply #15: okay

[iverglas]

Perhaps the likelihood of a reactive response to "danger" casts doubt on universal handgun ownership per se.

If that's what you were getting at -- that these "natural emotional responses" are good reason to have serious reservations about handguns, in particular, being readily available to members of the public, or at least to consider the issue -- when you said:

It's easy to talk objectively from a distance; more difficult to think calmly and rationally if your home was under attack, your wife and kids were threatened and so on.

I'm not condoning using firearms to defend oneself every time but how would YOU repond? You wouldn't know until you were in that position. It's easy to criticise someone from a warm, cozy chair. Maybe if it was YOU your attitude might be different.

-- they yup, we're in some agreement. Since no one's answer to the question "how would YOU respond?" can be known "until <s/he is> in that position", the real question is "why should WE rely on any assurances or predictions as to how YOU will respond?" That seems to be a more worthwhile and relevant subject than post facto assessment -- criticism or approval -- of anyone's particular actions, or guesses as to what anyone else's attitude might be had s/he been the person in question.

But's that another emotive issue; one I think we are better to avoid raising here...

Well actually, it's an integral part of the discussion here! And there's nothing necessarily more "emotive" about it than there is about any other question of public policy.

And it's central to any discussion of the case in question. Assuming that the facts are known (which of course they really aren't), it makes absolutely as much sense to ask whether the individual in question should have had access to a handgun (and state opinions on that issue) as it makes to ask whether he used it appropriately (and state opinions on that issue).

So feel free to stick around. ;)