The Gun Control Debate Flares Up, Of Course
With, e.g., this, Tom Plate at Cnn.com. It's basically a parade of fallacies. Though you won't need me to identify them, I probably won't be able to resist going through them in detail as soon as I get some time.
I see that the contrary position is articulated by the noted social philosopher Ted Nugent, known for his execrable music and some hunting videos that show arrows ripping through deer in extreme close-up slow-mo.
Lord help us. We are a silly bunch.
With, e.g., this, Tom Plate at Cnn.com. It's basically a parade of fallacies. Though you won't need me to identify them, I probably won't be able to resist going through them in detail as soon as I get some time.
I see that the contrary position is articulated by the noted social philosopher Ted Nugent, known for his execrable music and some hunting videos that show arrows ripping through deer in extreme close-up slow-mo.
Lord help us. We are a silly bunch.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:11 AM
2 Comments:
Interesting analysis ($) in the WSJ (also on B1 of the dead tree edition) - the upshot is that good data is hard to come by and that the numbers you hear from advocates of one position or another can be exaggerated beyond reliability (off-topic example: remember how ADA advocates stated that a quarter of Americans are disabled?).
The question for both sides: Do you really want to know the truth? If good research showed either extreme - no guns or universal carry - were safer, would you change your position?
The NRA is not going to change its position under any circumstances. Any utilitarian arguments they make are just supplemental to their focus on rights, real or imagined. Many of their claims about the good are simply propaganda anyway. "An armed society is a polite society" is rank bullshit. Witness Iraq. Or Tombstone. An armed society without drugs, alcohol, racial or ethnic hatreds, large economic disparities, mental illness, and abusive relationships, maybe.
Would gun control advocates change their position? Sarah Brady, probably not. On the other hand, she's relatively moderate. Much of what gun control advocates say in argument is also propaganda. Simply banning handguns, for instance, is not going to magically make them disappear. They want us to imagine a utopia without violence - ain't gonna happen. And anyone who has ever called an armed cop for help has to acknowledge that handguns can be good, despite the ironclad fact that they are built to kill people.
There's not a full equivalency here. The NRA's intellectual bankruptcy is much greater than the anti-gun groups'.
So, I want to know the real truth, and it could change my moderate pro-gun-control position.
I think this is a hugely important (meta-)point, LL.
It's absolutely astounding how little decent information is available to us about so many important public policy issues.
And, as you say: many, many people just don't want to know the truth.
What they want is some nipped-and-tucked version of the facts that confirms the position that they already hold, and have no intention of ever giving up no matter what the facts say.
Like you, LL, I'm willing to re-evaluate my somewhat anti-gun-control position, I think...but I want to see the real evidence.
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