Comment by unbalancedevh

> It's statements like this that make me question the intellectual honesty of people. It doesn't take much thinking to understand it, right?

It isn't a matter of intellectual honesty. People who think assault rifles should be banned don't necessarily believe that you shouldn't be able to protect yourself. (It doesn't take much thinking to understand that, right?)

The issues are much more complicated and intertwined than people are willing to deal with, making it easy to fall back on a couple simple ideas like "don't kill unborn life" and "let me have an AR-15 to protect myself." But when you start digging into the ramifications of unwanted children, the social programs required to support them, the impact on the parents, etc.; and what it means to let every tom/dick/harry own and carry whatever weapon they want, even if there's a background check and mandatory training; you get into details for which there is no clear best, or even good, solution. We do have reality to deal with.

People only have so much energy to spend on understanding issues that don't affect them personally, and different people are affected by different issues. So of course there will be wide gaps between perspectives and how those perspectives are expressed. That doesn't mean anyone is being intellectually dishonest.