Originally Posted by Yakk
Ok, here goes. There is a thing in economics called 'negative externalities'.
There can be things that, individually, make your life better, but collectively make the community worse off.
One could argue that making guns harder to get, or even banning them, might fall under this category.
So, for each person, getting a gun, given that there are lots of guns out there, might be a good thing.
At the same time, for the society as a whole, making guns harder to get might benefit everyone.
Thus, one could be anti-gun, in that one wants guns to be harder to get, in order to benefit everyone. At the same time, one might believe that until guns are harder to get, it is useful to have a gun.
Alternatively, you could be in a situation with multiple optimal points.
Imagine four cities:
A> In one, everyone has a gun. 1,000 people die from gunshots every day.
B> In another, nobody has a gun. Nobody dies from gunshots.
C> In the third, half the people have a gun. 500 people with guns die from gunshots. 1000 people without guns die from gunshots.
D> In the forth, 1% of the population has a gun. 30 people with guns die from gunshots, and 100 people without guns die from gunshots.
Notice that B is the safest city (no guns). But, everyone having a gun is safer than half the population having a gun. And, if half the population has a gun, buying a gun is the easiest way to reduce your death rate from guns.
If someone made guns harder to get, and you moved to situation D, you would have a 10 fold drop in gun deaths.
Now, this is a hypothetical situation, but it does demonstrate how you could have two different points that are locally optimal. Getting from one to the other can't be done easily, without lots of effort.
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