Megan McArdle, Missing The Point Of Guns At Political Rallies

Here.

Kant notes that the evidence of belief is the willingness to bet, and I'm glad to see that more people are recognizing this point. If more people had to put their money where their mouths were, there'd be less nonsense on the intertubes...and everywhere.

But McArdle seems to think that people are worried about the guns on display at Obama rallies because they're worried that one of the people displaying the guns is going to start shooting.

Speaking for myself, it never actually entered my mind that the very people openly carrying guns at political rallies were likely to shoot anyone. Rather, I saw it as a clear though unspecific allusion to a willingness to consider violence as a means to political ends. I did not think that the gun-bearers were threatening to shoot anyone, nor that they were likely to. Rather, I saw it as ramping up the crazy by a notch or so. I take it that the message is something like "you've pushed me so far that I'm now kinda sorta thinking in terms of violence as a response." That's completely insane of course, but it's very different than "I am going to shoot someone now."

My family, as I've mentioned before, has a small cattle ranch. We're very comfortable with firearms, and often have occasion to carry them, especially since my grandparent's farm was abandoned--it's become a magnet for all sorts of freaks. But the very idea of carrying a firearm anywhere near a political rally would send everyone in my family--even the conservatives--into paroxysms of angry disbelief. It would be considered a sign of outright insanity.

At any rate: to address the betting point: no, I would not bet on the proposition:

One of the people openly carrying at Obama rallies will shoot at someone.

However--were I inclined to bet, or to bet on such matters--I would, with great sadness, bet on a number of less-specific propositions in the neighborhood. A lot of these propositions are propositions I'd really rather not discuss, however.

Here is one propositions I will discuss and would bet on if I could figure out how to specify the relevant bet: the fact that people have shown up openly armed at political rallies increases the likelihood that there will be gun violence at future political rallies. (However, the background likelihood of notable violence at American political rallies seems very low to me...and that, of course, matters.)

So IMHO, McArdle has missed the point here, and done so in a way that minimizes a real problem.