{"id":66728,"date":"2018-05-04T05:00:49","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T10:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=66728"},"modified":"2018-05-03T21:11:53","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T02:11:53","slug":"tools-and-craftsmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=66728","title":{"rendered":"Tools And Craftsmen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Chinese invented gunpowder, everybody knows that.\u00a0 Traders spread firearms technology from China to the Middle East and eventually to Western Civilization from which the Founders were descended.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/americas\/us-gun-deaths-killings-control-homicides-america-shootings-a8285916.html\">\u201cGuns are now responsible for 75% of killings in America\u201d<\/a> claims the recent headline.\u00a0 The implication is that banning guns will end killing.<\/p>\n<p>Thoughts:<\/p>\n<p>First, what was responsible for killings before guns were invented?\u00a0 The West only obtained guns 500 years ago.\u00a0 Were there no killings earlier?\u00a0 None at the time of the Norman Conquest?\u00a0 None during the Roman Empire?\u00a0 None before Christ?\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t square with my recollection of history.<\/p>\n<p>Second, if guns only cause 75% of the killings, what causes the other 25%?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t the existence of non-gun killings undermine the claim that guns are responsible for killings?<\/p>\n<p>What if the gun itself isn\u2019t responsible for the killing, what if some human being is responsible for the killing and the gun is merely the tool he used?\u00a0 After all, Cain didn\u2019t have a gun but Able is just as dead.\u00a0 What if we\u2019re confusing \u201ccause\u201d for \u201ceffect\u201d and thereby placing responsibility for the killing on the wrong thing?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What if?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: The Chinese invented gunpowder, everybody knows that.\u00a0 Traders spread firearms technology from China to the Middle East and eventually to Western Civilization from which the Founders were descended. \u201cGuns are now responsible for 75% of killings in America\u201d claims the recent headline.\u00a0 The implication is that banning guns will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66729,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66728\/revisions\/66729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}