Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Arming The Elderly

After a crazy person shoots up a place and kills a lot of people, opponents of gun control often argue that the crime wouldn't have happened if people at that place were better armed and could shoot back. I generally take a dim view of this response -- the level of trigger-happiness that would successfully reduce casualties in mass shooting cases would probably cause enough mistaken shootings of innocent people in other cases not to be worthwhile.

I'm curious about whether anyone on the pro-gun side will make this argument in response to the recent shooting in a nursing home. I'm quite amused at the thought of arming elderly people in nursing homes, even as I know that it would be an extremely bad idea.

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