The liberals want a hand in it...
Accurate, and right on! You see, they don't want us doing it by ourselves! USAFNoDak, nice call. But take it just a bit further. You see, the govt authority for assisted suicide could later be turned into govt authority for required suicide, AKA Euthanasia. Of course, they will all claim this could never be the case, but once they have the power, only constant effort (and maybe not even that) will keep them from using it against us.
To sidestep for just a moment, my wife is anti-abortion, but she is strongly pro choice. She feels the choice should be no abortion, but we must have the choice. Her argument, and it makes fine sense to me, is that the same govt power that says "you cannot" is also the power to say "you must", entirely depending on the point of view of the leadership.
And I see a similar possibility here, with "assisted suicide". Allowing govt to intrude into what is an entirely private matter, AND bring with them their ideas of control, certification, and what is right and proper is a slippery slope, at the bottom of which lies something like Nazi Germany, dependant entirely on the political outlook and mental stability of the ruling class.
The Nazis had no issues with "helping" to end the lives of many mental patients, and the terminally ill (for the good of the race), before they went on to focus their efforts against those other "undesirables" such as Jews, Gypsys, homosexuals, and political dissidents, etc.
The whole argument that we are at greater risk of XXXX because there are handguns in our lives is a crock. But it pervades the anti gunners agenda, and has bled over into the medical and insurance estblishments to some degree as well.
I work for a govt subcontractor, all govt rules apply. Several years ago, as part of our annual medical evaluation (performed by another subcontractor) a "risk assessment" form was included. The analysis of which was performed by yet another subcontractor. All the usual questions about smoking, drinking, seat belt use, driving above the speed limit, etc., including one question about whether or not I or anyone in my family had been involved in a violent encounter in the last 5 years. Not one single question about guns, shooting, or crime, only the "violent encounter" question.
When the results were returned to us a few weeks later, one of the steps we were advised to take to improve our risk factors was "avoid handguns"! Now, most of the time I ignore this kind of crap, but this time I just couldn't. I pitched a fit to my boss, and going through company channels, I continued to pitch a fit to the company management, including Human Rights/EEO people and others. And they AGREED with me (although not always for the same reasons). The risk assesment company had clearly gone beyond its authority, and the next year, they didn't have the contract any more! Even the management who were not pro gun (and there were some) were upset, because by advising us to avoid handguns, without even asking a single question remotely relevant to firrearms, it called all the rest of their conclusions into question. It indicated a bias, and made all of their data suspect. You can do a lot of things working under a govt contract, but this was something you cannot do and get away with it. it reflects poorly on the bureaucrats who issued the contract to the "unreliable" subcontractor, and embarrassing the bureaucrats is something they will not forgive.
If handguns were so dangerous to us all, simply by their very presence, considering that there are many millions of them out there in private hands, not to mention all those in the hands of uniformed and non uniformed govt employees, we ought to have millions of handgun deaths every year. We do not. Therefore, I ,must conclude that the risk due to the simple presence of handguns is what we call a LIE!
