Partial-birth abortions and assault weapons... like two peas in a pod.

These two terms are remarkably similar in nature. Both are nasty-sounding names coined to demonize the targets of restrictive legislation. No obstetrician would ever refer to "partial-birth abortion," but to intact dilation and extraction. Similarly, I've never heard anyone who owns a semiauto rifle with modern styling call it an "assault weapon."

Advocates of free choice (self-defense choice and reproductive choice) face similar attacks from the groups who seek to curtail their rights. The anti-choice lobby's favorite tactic is to take freedom through creeping incrementalism. Some legislators have attempted to make it a crime to harm a fetus. Others have tried to pass laws requiring women seeking abortions to listen to fundy preaching first, saying they need a "balanced perspective." Freedom of choice is taken away bit by bit.

"If we can just get this one law passed, we'll be satisfied," say the anti-choicers. "Do you really want people getting abortions left and right without a second thought? We just want some reasonable, sensible regulations of abortion." But "this one law" is never the last one. After one restriction gets approved, the anti-choice lobby wants another, and another.

Parents must be notified. Patients must view pictures of fetuses before going through with an abortion. "What's the matter? Don't you support common-sense abortion regulations?" This argument often plays well in the media, while the pro-choice side seems extreme for opposing such seemingly innocuous laws. After all, what's the big problem with a woman looking at pictures of other fetuses before deciding to end her own pregnancy?

This should give you some perspective on how gun owners feel when "common-sense regulations" that strip away their rights are proposed. The US gun control argument has played out much like the abortion argument, with one "reasonable restriction" after another being passed and doing nothing to address the root causes of violence in society. The ideas of reproductive choice and self-defense choice are both rooted in the knowledge that each individual person is fundamentally responsible for their own body, their own safety, their own being. The state has no right to make its citizens act as baby machines against their will, nor does it have their right to strip them of the ability to defend themselves, especially seeing as the state has no obligation to protect anyone who isn't in custody.

So if you support reproductive choice but aren't sure where you stand on self-defense choice, remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

defend themselves. Works in Canada

That's nice, right up until you're the target of an attack with a knife or an illegal gun (which would be very plentiful in a post-ban US). What other rights do you think people don't need to exercise?

If this guy only had a pair of knives, how many do you think he could stab before he was brought down with something handy?
It's kind of hard to knife a half dozen people from across the room.