A firearm by itself does not cause direct harm to anyone. A N Y O N E. It is the illegal use of a firearm that causes harm, in much the same way that illegal use of a hammer can cause harm.

Yes, every single person in the world is aware of that. Not a single one thinks there are guns just going out and doing mass shootings and murders by themselves. Do you even understand your own talking point?

But put them in the hands of a dangerous psychopath and there's few objects more dangerous -- certainly not legal ones with such a low barrier to entry. Hammers and baseball bats don't even come close.

And boy, do you ever love putting them in the hands of dangerous psychopaths. Around 80% of mass shooters are legal gun owners. Why is this acceptable to you? Why will you do nothing to lower that number, even slightly?

I did say that widespread gun ownership doesn't--by itself, or as a primary cause--create crime

Doesn't matter, still bullshit. Compare the crime rates of wealthy countries the world over and they're all much the same. You know what stands out? America has a layer of gun violence on top. Just as many robberies, only sometimes the cashier gets shot and killed. Just as many assaults, but the only country with more than 1 mass shooting a year.

Because guns, in the hands of fuckstains, absolutely do create crime. They give dangerous, impulsive and damaged people the opportunity to kill another person just as easily a they can unlock their phone.

And try as you might to twist it into some idiotic "guns don't kill people" strawman, only in the deepest depths of idiocy do you find people who genuinely think gun-control is about banning a harmless, inanimate object, rather than keeping that object out of the hands of scum.

Why do you support selling guns to violent people? Why do you support reckless gun owners arming criminals by leaving their guns unsecured? Are you even able to pretend you don't after 20 years of opposing every reform that tries?

So you have a problem to contend with; if guns are causing crime, by simply existing

Nope, I don't. Crime rates are falling because of social reforms and access to services. You know, the things the pro-gun community have finally decided are the answer (since it wasn't Marilyn Manson, Doom, Grand Theft Auto, Hiphop, gay people or the 5000 other times they were complete fucking liars).

But even with that falling crime rate, oh look, this months mass murder, a problem no other country has. While we've been actually improving things, what has the pro-gun community done? Maximized the damage criminals can do by making semi-automatic weapons cheap, accessible and easy to steal.

Is that weak shit genuinely all you've got to offer your country? "Look, if you ignore all the schoolchildren being shot in the face, our crime rate is falling at much the same rate as the rest of the world".

Oh, very interesting that you can diagnose over the internet. Where did you get your PhD in psychology or sociology, or which medical school did you go to, and where did you do your residency in psychiatry?

Why? It's not like you're not already ignoring hundreds of people with those exact qualifications. It's no great mystery why so many domestic abusers and mass murderers put a bullet through their skull before the cops arrive.

I just watched my mother-in-law commit suicide while in hospice by intentionally dehydrating herself

Sounds like bullshit to me. Medical staff aren't exactly unfamiliar with patients who are terminal and ready to go and I'm skeptical they'd sit around and watch someone torture themselves to death without ever reaching for the saline.

Why didn't you give her one of your cool guns so they could have scraped her brains off the floor? Sounds to me like yet another case of a gun owner claiming that guns are the solution, then not using them to solve anything.

An anti-suicide stance forces people to suffer without offering any options.

Have you forgotten that there are ways to kill yourself without a gun? I'm pretty certain you've literally said "they'd just use another method" to me before.

Anyway, that jab was pillow soft because I've been an advocate of right to die legislation for literally decades. You can do it without arming school shooters or forcing your family to clean up fragments of your skull.

Anti-suicide hotlines are the same bullshit; you keep someone alive, with no care for whether or not their quality of life improves.

The world over, only 1 in 10 people who attempt suicide will go on to die by suicide. If they use a gun, their chances of survival are functionally zero and they won't even be cold before you sweep them under the rug claiming "suicide doesn't count".

I'm done with you

No you're not. Every time you post your pro-gun bullshit, I'm going to be right there making sure everybody can see how slimy and self serving you are as you use tortured old ladies and suicide victims to attack someone who would have helped them, because they won't use a gun to do it.