Again, look at the gun laws in other civilized countries and see how "gun censorship" has generally had a favorable result. The chances of being shot in Canada are much lower than in America.
Two things on this:
1. Someone who is intent on doing harm will find a way.
2. Criminals will always find a way to get guns. That's why they're criminals. They do illegal shit. Do you really want to live in a society that mandates that, when faced with a gun wielding criminal who has found a way to get a gun one way or another, your only legal recourse is your fists and feet? I don't.
There's also the simple matter of liberty here. As the saying goes, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." So what right does the government have to tell me I can't own this tool when I've done nothing to prove myself irresponsible in such ownership?
Lastly, and this is just as important if not more important than the question of self-defense, it says in the Declaration of Independence that when a government is no longer serving the needs of the people it is not only the right but the duty of Americans to "cast off such government."
Is it likely that we'll ever be forced to do this? I don't know. Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but on down the road? Very possible. And a well-armed citizenry would be essential to this task.
As to the slippery slope...
The same argument has been used for everything. Take gay marriage. How many protestors insisted that once you let gays marry, it would be no time before people were marrying dogs, umbrellas and tractors. But nobody has married a tree, because reasonable lines can be drawn and adhered to. Marriage hasn't descended down a slippery slope into utter chaos where women are marrying chickens.
The error you're making here is that you're not looking for enough into the future. You're chipping and putting here instead of driving. It takes time for ideas to incubate and develop to maturity.
If you want a real-world example of people doing crazy shit like you describe because it slowly became accepted within their society, look to Japan. This is the land where people are in long-term relationships with their computers and with robots.
Don't think that, given enough time and enough "acceptance" from the American community, that it can't happen here.
Besides, on the slippery slope, I already showed you how it works with guns. So it DOES happen. The comeback of "but do we really need to own guns?" doesn't really address the issue of the slow and compounding erosion of rights.
How important is it to protect the freedom of someone to deny the Holocaust or protest with "
Troops" signs at the funerals of dead soldiers? Tradeoffs always have to be made somewhere.
Extremely important. Not because I have any legitimate regard for that particular viewpoint, but because I feel like the right to have ideas and express those ideas--no matter how outlandish--should be inalienable.
Now, I don't believe that I should have the right to unduly harass a person (and what constitutes harassment could be a whole other discussion), but to hold an opinion, to publish a book with this opinion, to express this viewpoint over the Internet or radio, to hold meetings with likeminded folk, to engage in reasonable and lawful protests where this opinion is expressed. . . Yes, I think it's extremely important that we maintain this right.
You reference the Westboro Baptist group. That's just about the most reprehensible bunch of people I've ever encountered. And there have been times when I've seen their bullshit and gotten SO PISSED because of how unreasonably retarded they're acting. But as far as I'm concerned, wanting their actions to be criminally prosecutable by the government is far more criminal than anything they're out there doing.
After all, who is the government to try to determine what types of speech are immoral? What gives them the power to regulate the citizenry in this way? And to get back to that slippery slope, if it's suppression of the "hateful" today, how can we be so sure that it won't be political dissidents tomorrow?
