@DaveHiggins As i understand it that's the point of people shouting "right to bear arms"? I mean it's right that there's a mutual desire to solve the problem but by avoiding the workable fix people are making a value judgement it's right to oppose. Social cohesion can't and shouldn't come at the expense of fixing problems or political capitulation to the worst informed/richest body.

@Ashrand Lack of social cohesion is potentially the problem.

Guns-qua-object are not vastly dangerous; they might perhaps bruise if they fall of a shelf. The danger comes when someone uses them with intent to harm a person.

People with a happy and fulfilling life don't go on killing sprees. The people who do that almost always do it out of a feeling of marginalisation. A sense they aren't included otherwise.

So, improving social ties reduces the number of people who choose to kill.

@DaveHiggins That's very true, to an extent, the logic falls down when you look at countries that limit or ban guns and see a change in violent crimes and injuries. Now there is a chicken and egg problem that you don't know if countries with fewer social problems are more likely to choose to ban guns and social cohesion *is* a problem, but it isn't served by ending an argument on the basis that one side isn't listening.

@Ashrand Not saying taking away guns doesn't reduce gun deaths.

If you look at countries that have imposed a significant limitation (such as the UK), it almost always comes swiftly and decisively after an incident or perhaps two.

Which suggests the repeated lack of change in the US is a signal the US won't move in response to the same arguments.

So, perhaps it's time to explore new approaches as well.

@DaveHiggins That would seem the core of our disagreement then, while i agree the US is only getting more resistant to change as a whole, the idea 'new approaches' will find better luck is at best misinterpreting people that demand no change but different outcomes, and at worst agreeing to concede every argument to the group who sticks it's heels in. Any good faith approach requires that from all parties.

@Ashrand I'm coming at this from decades of practising law: sometimes a dispute had a clear right and wrong or was one must get less for the other to have more; but sometimes understanding what people really wanted rather than what they said they wanted revealed a mutually beneficial consensus.

So, I'm not ready to give up on there being at least part of a solution in considering why pro-gun-freedom people demand no change.

@DaveHiggins I can see that, it's the high road to take for sure and i respect your position on that basis, i'm also aware that the reasons for opposition to gun control have much more to do with contrarianism and an absolutist position on ownership than a considered opinion and therefore that a mutually beneficial consensus isn't a matter of compromise or contextualization.
For what it's worth i hope you're right, but as with my stance on guns the evidence leads me to think otherwise

@Ashrand Much rather have an honest disagreement than a knee-jerk consensus, so likewise.

If the majority of the gun dispute is from embedded belief and not changeable opinion - and I agree that will be the reason for at least some of it - then hopefully pushing the debate from every side we can will reduce the number of absolutists in the next generation enough to allow debate to work.

Or the youth action will bring us all a pleasant surprise in a couple of months.

@DaveHiggins Amen to that final point! And in any other case it's good to be reminded i'm not with the people unwilling to find a way forward with compromise.