Better Off Unarmed: Bloomberg's Firearm Fallacy
Bloomberg sidles up to the Better Off Unarmed argument here:
Everything Bloomberg says in this piece is either false or irrelevant. Unfortunately Gohmert--a lunatic who blames the shooting on "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs"--is much closer to being right here. Way to go, Bloomberg. Blinded by your irrational commitments, you let yourself get hosed by this superstitious nut case.
The anti-gun folks simply have to quit pushing this point. It's not only making them looks stupid, it's making them stupid.
We might try to rehabilitate Bloomberg's point like so:
Yes, Gohmert is right. If there'd have been an armed sane person in the theater, it would have likely lowered the death toll. However, there are not and never will be enough people with legal CCWs to make it likely that any arbitrarily-selected mass shooting will be stopped by such a person. A better solution is to decrease the availability of guns, not increase it.
There are obvious objections to this response, but at least it is sensible, and does not force proponents of gun control to accept the patently absurd proposition that you are better off being unarmed if you are attacked by a murderer.
(Previous post on the Better Off Unarmed argument here.)
”Do you really think that you’d be safe if anyone in the audience could pull out a gun and start shooting? I don’t think so,” Bloomberg said.Would you be safe? Well, by hypothesis, you're not safe in the situation we're discussing. However and on average, you'd be safer if one of your fellow potential victims were armed.
Everything Bloomberg says in this piece is either false or irrelevant. Unfortunately Gohmert--a lunatic who blames the shooting on "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs"--is much closer to being right here. Way to go, Bloomberg. Blinded by your irrational commitments, you let yourself get hosed by this superstitious nut case.
The anti-gun folks simply have to quit pushing this point. It's not only making them looks stupid, it's making them stupid.
We might try to rehabilitate Bloomberg's point like so:
Yes, Gohmert is right. If there'd have been an armed sane person in the theater, it would have likely lowered the death toll. However, there are not and never will be enough people with legal CCWs to make it likely that any arbitrarily-selected mass shooting will be stopped by such a person. A better solution is to decrease the availability of guns, not increase it.
There are obvious objections to this response, but at least it is sensible, and does not force proponents of gun control to accept the patently absurd proposition that you are better off being unarmed if you are attacked by a murderer.
(Previous post on the Better Off Unarmed argument here.)
posted by Winston Smith at
9:31 AM
4 Comments:
Why are we arguing over the straw man of gun control?
There are currently two topics under discussion:
1. Banning high capacity magazines. a
(The aurora shooter had 100 round drum magazines! And 6000 rounds of ammo bought mail order.)
I am pretty sure that concealed weapons don't require either of these.
2. Closing loopholes in background check laws so that psychotics can't buy buy huge arsenals legally.
Well, I don't think those are the policies Bloomberg is advocating...
But yeah, personally, I am way more than receptive to the idea of a ban on 100-round magazines. I have a couple of 30-round mags for my AR-15, and, frankly, they strike me as being kinda crazy.
Closing loopholes to keep guns out of the hands of the insane is something that ought to get universal agreement...though my guess is that the NRA will put up a stink about it...
The NRA - or their congressional delegations - already have put up a stink.
People will talk about unusually lethal weapons — that could be potentially a discussion you could have,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is that there are 30-round magazines that are just common. You simply can’t keep these weapons out of the hands of sick, demented individuals who want to do harm — and when you try to do it you restrict our freedoms."
Of course, the same argument applies to legalizing meth and PC
Yeah, I can't believe I used to belong to the NRA. What a bunch of loons.
As if there were no significant difference between a 30-round mag and a 100-round mag.
I think it's also significant that, IIRC, 30 rounds is standard for U.S. Army M-16s and M-4s. Why, exactly, do I, for example, need larger mags than the Army and Marines?
Also, that NRA argument can be stood on its head in a way they wouldn't like: if the two magazine sizes should be grouped together, perhaps that's an argument for banning both.
Everybody is so flippin' crazy about this issue.
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