America as a Free Fire Zone

[CrisisPapers]

Ernest Partridge

On January 12, thirty thousand people attended a memorial service for the seven victims of the Tucson massacre.

Thirty thousand: that’s about the same number of Americans who died in 2006 from gunshot wounds. Almost one hundred every day.

That is a statistic that stands alone among the civilized nations of the world. The Brady Campaign reports that the annual gun homicides in Finland were 17, in Australia 35, in England and Wales 39, in Spain 60, in Germany 194, in Canada 200, and in the United States 9484. This means that homicides amounted to almost one third of gun deaths in the United States.

Compared with other industrial countries, the U.S. firearm homicide rate was:

— 5 times that of Canada
— 10 times that of Finland
— 13 times that of Germany
— 19 times that of Australia
— 24 times that of Spain.
— 44 times that of England and Wales

These are hard, authenticated facts. Whatever position one takes on the gun control issue, statistics such as these must be acknowledged and dealt with if one is to be taken seriously in the debate.

So what is to account for those 30,000 gun deaths in the United States? There are many hypotheses, by no means mutually exclusive: A “gun culture” based upon a long historical tradition, the depiction of gun violence in the popular mass media (movies and TV, computer video games), the large number of privately owned firearms (though less, per capita, than in Canada), and finally, the almost total absence of laws restricting gun ownership.

The unrestricted access to and ownership of guns in the United States is largely a result of the lobbying of the gun industry through its surrogate, the National Rifle Association, which wields virtual veto power over the Congress. This despite the fact that a majority of the American public, including the rank and file members of the NRA, approve of restrictions on gun ownership. In particular: 79% of Americans and 63% of gun owners support a requirement of a police permit for gun purchases., and 87% of Americans and 83% of gun owners approve of background checks before purchasing guns.

Following each assassination or massacre in the United States, there is a public outcry for gun control: the Kennedy and King assassinations in the sixties, the Columbine High School Shootings in April,1999, the Virginia Tech massacre in April, 2007. The Tucson shootings last month, however, were ominously different. This time the members of Congress, the President, and the media, while deploring the incident, had little if anything to say about legal control and registration of firearms. Such is the control today of the gun industry and the NRA over public discussion and legislation.

As I contemplated writing this piece about the gun menace in the United States, I revisited an internet essay I posted it in May, 1999, a month after the Columbine incident. To my profound sorrow, I discovered that very little had changed in the intervening twelve years, and that much of what I wrote then applies equally today. The propaganda and rationalizations of the gun apologists are virtually identical today to those that were presented twelve years ago. And so, much of the remainder of this essay will draw upon that earlier work.

Then, as now, I asked myself, what more can I say about the gun menace in the United States, that has not been repeated, time and again, ad nauseam? What could I possibly add to the debate?”

Perhaps my contribution might be drawn from insights gained from my four decades of toil as a professor of philosophy and a frequent teacher of critical thinking. The horrible incidents in Littleton, Colorado, Blacksburg, Virginia, Tucson, Arizona, and other places too numerous to mention, routinely provoke in the public media a flow of logical fallacies, originating from or encouraged by the gun lobby, sufficient to launch a thousand books devoted thereto. Even a brief treatment of the identifiable fallacies appearing in the public debate over the "causes" of gun violence would easily fill a book. And I have other books to write. So I will examine only five fallacies.

There is, I submit, no moral justification for tolerating the conditions in our society that lead to the untimely deaths of 30,000 of our fellow citizens each year. Moreover, the arguments of the gun lobby and gun enthusiasts in favor of allowing these conditions to continue can not withstand logical scrutiny. Or so I will argue in the remainder of this essay.

Common to most of these fallacies is scapegoating and rationalization - the "not us, it's them" response. The first two on our list, "the slippery slope" and "the fallacy of the sacred text" are so commonplace among the NRA and other Second Amendment absolutists that they demand our attention. The other three all rest upon weird theories of causation and proof - theories so outlandish that a simple explication thereof, separated from the political rhetoric, should suffice as refutation.


The Slippery Slope - (alternatively called "the domino effect" and "the camel's nose"). We've all heard the argument: "once they (meaning , of course, the government) take away our assault weapons, what's to keep them from confiscating all handguns, and then our sporting and target rifles? Where do you draw the line?" An interesting but often overlooked feature of "slippery slope arguments" is that the slope slips in both directions. Hence, the arguments of the gun-control advocates: "once you allow citizens to own assault weapons, why not artillery, or even atomic weapons? Where do you draw the line?"

"Where do we draw the line?" Quite simply, we "draw the line" where, in our collective and considered wisdom, we choose to "draw the line." Simple as that. The drawing of legal "lines" is both commonplace and generally uncontroversial. There is no remarkable difference between the political judgment of a seventeen and an eighteen year old. But clearly six year-olds should not vote, and thirty year-olds should not be denied the franchise. So we "draw the line" at eighteen, simply because we have to "draw" it at some age. We have collectively agreed that eighteen "seems about right." Likewise in the cases of the legal ages of consent to marry, to purchase and drink alcoholic beverages, to operate a motor vehicle, and so on.

Both nature and artifice are chock-full of continua - gradations from "too little" to "too much," with no identifiable "line" between the extremes. The list is endless: vehicle speeds, truck load limits, blood alcohol content, ambient noise, water and air pollution levels, and so on.

Civil comity and personal safety both require some "drawing of lines" across such continua. The "line" along the continuum in the right to bear arms should reasonably be drawn beyond registered ownership by non-felons, and before the ownership of assault or nuclear weapons by felons. The NRA complaint against "line-drawing" is specious.


The Fallacy of the Sacred Text. To the NRA and other gun-advocates, the Second Amendment simply means what it says. More precisely, they hold that the second clause regarding "the right to keep and bear arms" means what it says. They conveniently overlook the first clause which justifies the second through the "free state's" need of a "well-regulated militia." And the less said about that word "regulated" the better. Like scripture, say the absolutists, the Constitution is exempt from the ordinary weaknesses of human language such as ambiguity, vagueness and historical contexts. The founding fathers speak, say the absolutists, like the voice of God, unequivocally, clearly, and with ultimate authority.

Accordingly, the Second Amendment "means what it says - 'shall not be infringed.'" Period!

But why should this "right to keep and bear arms" be absolute, when none of the other constitutional rights are absolute? As Justice Holmes famously remarked, the right to free speech does not allow one to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Nor does the freedom of religion allow human sacrifice or even permit parents to deny on religious grounds, appropriate medical attention for their children. . The right of the free press is limited by the laws of libel, and the right of free assembly does not sanction lynch-mobs or the obstruction of traffic. None of these "constitutional rights" are absolute. Why then should the "right to bear arms" be an exception?

Religious conservatives, in their defense of "absolute morality," commonly condemn "situation ethics." And yet, whenever one is obedient to two or more moral rules, "situation ethics" becomes unavoidable. (The religious conservative claims obedience to at least ten). As the late philosopher Charles Frankel once observed, exclusive obedience to a single moral rule is not "morality," it is fanaticism. The ten commandments forbid "bearing false witness," murder, and stealing. But what if one must lie or steal to save an innocent life? Two or more moral rules raises the logical possibility of, and often actual encounter with, moral conflicts - the plain impossibility of avoiding the violation of one rule through obedience to another. Enter "situation ethics." (See my A Defense of Moral Relativism).

If "the right to bear arms" is to be absolute, what other social, political and moral desiderata are to be sacrificed to this one absolute? Let's start with "the right to safety in one's home, property and person." To their profound grief, Gabrielle Giffords and her Tucson constituents faced the implications of this sacrifice on January 8, 2011. Must we all?

There is an alternative to Second Amendment absolutism which has been adopted by all civilized societies (including our own, though to a minimal degree): admit that "the right to bear arms" must, along with all other rights, submit to limits, defined by the values we accord to our other rights.


The Fallacy of the Single Cause. “It wasn’t the availability of guns and high-capacity magazines that caused the mayhem in Tucson. The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was a nut case.” “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Similarly with the Columbine tragedy: “It wasn't the availability of guns, it was video games." "No it wasn't, it was the mass media." "No it wasn't, it was poor parenting." Back again to "no it wasn't, it was the availability of guns." And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Common to all this buck-passing is the assumption that "if someone else is to blame, then we are not - if some other enterprise is the cause, then ours is not." And so the search continues for the cause of the tragedies.

"The cause?" Why just one cause? What is logically wrong with suggesting that "the gun culture," and video games, and the mass media, and alienation, and absentee parents all may have, to some degree, contributed to these atrocities? Why must there be only one cause, the discovery of which fully exculpates all other suspect causes?

Answer: there is nothing whatever wrong with searching for, and addressing, multiple causes. If we are well-educated and logically savvy, we don't ask, "what is the cause of cancer?" Or "What was the cause of the Russian Revolution?" Or "what was the cause of Barack Obama’s election?" Why then should we tolerate, without rebuttal, the attempts of the gun lobby, the video game entrepreneurs, Hollywood film makers, or whoever else, to evade responsibility by locating "the cause" gun violence "somewhere else"?

But the "multiple causes" approach can itself be an oversimplification, for it evokes a mind-picture of separate legs holding up a table. This view suggests that each of the "multiple causes" is independent and discrete. But surely that is not the case. These several "causes" (in the social science jargon, "contributing factors") constitute a web of intricately interacting "causes," aptly described as "the culture of violence." Thus media depiction of violence fosters a fascination with and a collection of firearms, and thence an absorption with violent video games, etc. (or vice versa - these "causes" are, after all, reciprocating). Attempts to solve "the gun violence problem" by attacking just one "cause" (such as gun ownership) is as useless as an attempt to kill a tree by cutting off one branch.


All-or-Nothing Causation. This fallacy is heard in the remark, "millions of kids play video games and watch violent TV and movies, but they don't all go on shooting rampages." In this we hear echoes from the tobacco industry: "millions of people smoke, but most of them don't get lung cancer. Ergo, smoking does not cause lung cancer." But smoking was never claimed to be the sole and certain cause of lung cancer. Instead, it is claimed (now with conclusive scientific evidence) to be a contributing and aggravating factor in carcinogenesis. Statistics tell the story, as we compare mortality figures for smokers and non-smokers. Similarly, while the vast majority of young people who play computer games or watch "slasher movies" admittedly do not commit homicides, this fact in no way discounts the possibility that some murders may be "triggered" by immersion in violent media. At the very least, that possibility deserves careful study, and I am told that such studies are very disquieting.


Proof-Positive or None. This sophistical device has been also been prominent in the apologetics of the tobacco industry. About the time of the first Surgeon General's report on Smoking and Health (in 1963), we read such dismissals as "nobody has ever shown anything conclusive about cigarettes and health - lung cancer and all that. It just hasn't been proved." And "there is no proof - no established proof - of cigarettes being harmful." (Thomas Whiteside's "A Cloud of Smoke" in The New Yorker, November 30, 1960). Closer examination shows that such dismissals rest upon an alleged failure to discover a "definitive causal connection between tobacco smoke and cancer." However, as David Hume argued in the eighteenth century, and as philosophers of science have since then generally concurred, "definitive causal connections" are not "observed" as such, they are inferred from the "constant conjunction" of events. Scientific "proof" is not only probabilistic (i.e., "a matter of degree"), in addition valid scientific hypotheses must be "falsifiable in principle" - i.e., the proponent of the hypothesis must be prepared to describe "what it would be like" (contrary to fact) for the hypothesis to be false. It is unlikely that "hired gun" debunkers in either the tobacco or the firearms industries are prepared to tell us what sort of "proof" might convince them that their products are, in fact, public menaces. (See my Cigarettes, Sophistry and David Hume.”)

A lack of "established," "conclusive" or "positive" proof does not amount to no proof at all. In both scientific practice and in practical life, we are best guided by probabilities. We buckle our seat belts, exercise regularly, avoid drug abuse, in the reasonable but less-than-certain belief that such precautions are warranted. And if the purveyors of the instruments and depictions of violence correctly point out that there is no certain evidence that their products promote mayhem, strong, albeit less than perfect evidence should suffice to justify a curtailing of their activities.


Fallacy and the Subversion of Public Debate. As the above (very partial) list of sophistries indicates, the rhetorical armament of commercial apologists is vast, subtle, and often ingenious. There are few public issues that can not be argued with apparently plausible arguments on both sides. Even with seemingly scientific issues such as global warming, biodiversity, pesticide use, and now the "causes" of gun violence, the targeted industries are routinely capable of producing "expert scientific" rebuttal witnesses. Thus the public comes to believe, as one wit put it, that in the arena of public debate, "for every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD." It doesn't take much logical acumen to understand that if all sides to an issue can be equally well supported, then no side can be supported. The coin of "expertise" and "evidence" is thus debased. Public debate becomes, as G. W. F. Hegel put it, "a night in which all cows are black."

Eventually, much of the public comes to believe that there are no facts, only "beliefs;" no evidence or proof, only "persuasion." Rational political debate is replaced by "public relations." According to some trendy scholars, expertise is to be regarded as “oppression,” and science itself demoted to merely another (white-western-male) "social construct." Enter the "post-modernists." Appropriate responses to global emergencies such as climate change and mass extinction are thus postponed indefinitely, until long after it is too late.

If there is to be no place in the "post-modern" world for critical scholarship and science, and thence for effective public policy derived therefrom, then in that world there will be many more Tucson tragedies, catastrophic weather events, ecological disasters, economic chaos, and much more, as shared community concerns fade into insignificance in the arena of competing private and commercial interests. Not a happy prospect.

Unless, Unless -- we come to our communal senses and appreciate that not all arguments are created equal; http://crisispapers.org/essays8p/opinion.htm">that there are objectively better (cogent) and worse (fallacious) modes of argumentation, and that a recognition of these modes of thinking can be taught to all ages. In particular, science teaching should include an understanding, not only of the content but also of the methodology and logic of science, so that a student, and eventually a public, can understand why there are good reasons to believe in astronomy, and no justification for believing in astrology, and why the warnings of government atmospheric scientists should carry more weight than the reassurances of the hired guns of the energy conglomerates. "Current events" discussions in high school and undergraduate college classes should cease to be mere sequences of "I believe thats," each regarded as equally precious" and "true-for" the student. Instead, student utterances of "belief" should be followed immediately by the challenge, "why should we believe you? What is your evidence and your argument?" Class discussions should become disciplined exercises in critical expression, defense and rebuttal, all with an aim, not to persuade, but to discover confirmable truths.

Alas, there are precious few teachers trained to lead such discussions, and fewer still being taught such skills in the Schools of Education. The results have been alarming, to say the least. Sara Rimer of The Hechinger Report (Teachers College, Columbia University) writes:

An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn't learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.

Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study....

Forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, according to the study. After four years, 36 percent showed no significant gains in these so-called "higher order" thinking skills.

A reversal of this dismal situation will require a renewed commitment to public intelligence and reasonableness whereby we may learn and appreciate once again that there are discoverable causes of and effective remedies for our social problems.

We hear a great deal these days about "teaching morality in the public schools." Perhaps we should. But even before that, perhaps we should start with a investment in the teaching of "critical thinking."


What is to be done? Those of us who were alive and alert during the sixties, who lived through the Kennedy and King assassinations and the urban riots of that decade, have repeatedly experienced the same dreary sequence which follows each prominent assassination or mass murder: public outrage and grief, demand for action, apologetics from the media and the NRA, "outrage fatigue," and finally a return to status quo ante - until the next atrocity. There is little indication that the aftermath of the Tucson incident will be at all different.

However, as some wise person once commented, hopeless causes are by far the most interesting: such "hopeless causes" as the non-violent overthrow of the British Raj in India, of Apartheid in South Africa, of legal segregation in the American south, and of Soviet communism. As the great Russian dissident, Andrei Sakharov, reflected:

There is a need to create ideals even when you can’t see any route by which to achieve them, because if there are no ideals then there can be no hope and then one would be completely in the dark, in a hopeless blind alley.

We begin by acknowledging the brutal facts. As the Sixties civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael remarked, "violence is as American as apple pie." He was right. The culture of violence is woven into the fabric of our society, continually nourished by the profit motive, and defended by the virtuoso skills of corporate public relations. And as we noted above, the "usual suspects" trotted out after each new horror – the NRA, the arms industry, computers (games and internet), the media (cinema and television), absentee parents – are not independent "causes" of youthful violence, they are dynamically interacting and reinforcing factors in that "culture of violence."

And as the statistics cited above clearly indicate, the consequences of that "culture of violence" are palpable.

The official response to the Tucson shootings has been profoundly discouraging. Comments such as "this is a terrible tragedy" are utterly uninstructive: we already know that, and need not be told again. Any proposals, from the President on down, that follow "let us all resolve to ...." are likely to be useless and unproductive hand-waving. We hunger for the bread of decisive and practical leadership, and are given stones of empty rhetoric.

The culture of violence will have to be attacked on many fronts, and at the roots. Firearms registration and control is not the answer - but it is an essential ingredient of the answer. Neither are restrictions and regulations of the internet, computer games or the media, enacted separately, the answer -- by themselves. But they are ingredients of the answer. On the other hand, voluntary restraints by the commercial media are unlikely to count for much, as recent history has amply proven. We've heard it all before: "If we don't portray violence, someone else will, and if that's what the public wants, our reward for moral restraint will only lead to our bankruptcy." As William Vanderbilt said, "The public be damned, I work for my stockholders!" "The invisible hand" of the free market, it seems, is without conscience. Proof? Again, look to recent history.

History also indicates solutions. Let the law (i.e. government) enforce upon all, what the conscientious businessman would enact for his firm "if it weren't for what my competitors would do to me." Garrett Hardin calls this "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon." "Government interference?" Of course! But such "interference" took opium out of our drugs and pollutants out of our air, lakes and rivers. "Government interference" also requires that no medicines be prescribed unless proven safe and effective, protects us from tainted food, and protects our life savings from bank failures. Not very long ago, only the radical right and a few hard-shelled libertarians would suggest that we abolish the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Now, to our great sorrow and peril, we find that those radicals are apparently in control of the Republican Party and the House of Representatives. So we must argue anew in defense of regulations designed to protect the minds and morals our youth and the very lives of our citizens.

Talk is cheap. It remains to be seen if we are sufficiently outraged by "the culture of violence" to be actually willing to pay for long-term remedies.

As I have argued above, "the culture of violence" does not have a single cause, and thus does not have a single remedy. But if asked to identify, in descending order of significance, the root causes, I would begin with this: depersonalization. We live in a society that reduces persons to "personnel" in corporate structures, to "consumers" and "utility maximizers" in our economy, and to targets in our media. . To the Columbine killers, Harris and Klebold, their fellow students were no more "persons" than the video images in "Doom" or the cinema images in "The Basketball Diaries." It all comes down to this: a deranged individual is capable of shooting at human-flesh-as-object. However, except in such desperate circumstances as warfare or self-defense, or in cases of extreme stress, few individuals can shoot to kill someone recognized as a fellow personal human being.

The core of morality in the great world religions, and in the secular "contractarian" ethics that I espouse and defend is empathy and compassion: the recognition in the other of the humanity and personhood that one cherishes in oneself. This is the essential message of the golden rule. Conversely, as the psychologist in the movie “Nuremberg” concluded, after interviewing the Nazi criminals, “lack of empathy the one characteristic that connects all the defendants: a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy. (The quotation accurately conveys the conclusions of the historical investigator, Dr. Gustav Gilbert). Thus it is that in modern society, thoughtless economic "happenstance" ("the invisible hand") erodes the humanity of others until one finds oneself surrounded by humanoid "objects." Accordingly, “banksters” and billionaires, with the purchased support and assistance of their political and media patrons enablers, loot our governments and deprive millions of our citizens of their homes, their livelihoods and their health. These plutocrats do all this heedless of the misery that they are causing in their seemingly limitless demand for more, still more, personal wealth.

This evil, issuing from the privation of empathy, must be thoughtfully resisted and reversed - in our personal lives ("let us resolve to...") but also through rigorous research, through public investment, through education, and through a collective demonstration of public outrage such as we are seeing today in Madison.

Ernest Partridge
The Crisis Papers
www.crisispapers.org

[Doctor_J]

1. Wait! Guns don't kill people!

I heard that on DU. those 30,000 would have been killed by knives if there weren't all these guns.

I am drawing a blank on the rest of the bromides

:puke:

[TheWraith]

6. You might do well to check in with actual research.

For starters, the large majority of that 30,000 is suicides. No, there's no reason to think they wouldn't choose some other means to off themselves if they didn't have a gun. Counties like Norway and Japan have virtually no legal guns, and their suicide rate is still vastly in excess of ours.

And yes, when England banned guns, you know what happened to their murder rate? It stayed exactly the same. Didn't even twitch. The only thing that happened is that now they're talking about the evil "knife culture" and how urgent it is that they ban kitchen knives, and glasses made of actual glass, for the public good.

This "article" also ignores the fact that violent crime is down by a third since 1993, while at the same time the number of guns in the US has increased by tens of millions. And cities like Chicago, which have no legal guns, number amongst the most violent in the country.

I for one am sick and tired of a certain segment of people who have a moral panic over the existence of firearms trying to blame all society's ills on the fact that people have the right to be armed in this country, completely ignoring the real differences between the US and elsewhere when it comes to violent crime: the "war on drugs" and the gut-wrenching inner city poverty that provides an endless stream of potential recruits for it. They'd much rather have a temper tantrum over the fact that someone, somewhere, might be lawfully owning and using a firearm. I see no way in which their frothy moral outrage "to protect the children" is different than the fundies decrying the corrosive moral influences of video games, gays, and lack of school prayer. Both are based on the anger that somewhere, someone isn't living by their exact personal code.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[X_Digger]

10. "Increased by tens of millions".. actually +125M since 1998

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/total-nics-background-checks

That's 40% of our total estimated number of guns- 300M in the last 13 years.

[TheWraith]

12. You're correct, but I didn't have the figure in front of me.

I thought it was more like 100 million, but I didn't want to cite if I was wrong.

[Mopar151]

16. I was talking to a lady who works in the firearms industry

"NOBODY could need all the guns we're makin'!"

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

18. And I'm sick and tired of this country supplying the world with arms,

and sick and tired of the NRA members being the lackeys of arms corporations, it's all about the money, not rights, and sick and tired of everlasting war just for profits, and sick and tired of people in this country being conditioned from cradle to grave to think violence is the answer to most problems, and sick and tired of the low value placed on peoples lives, and sick and tired of you telling me that these thoughts of mine are wrong!

[gejohnston]

22. I am with you

I just believe in doing the real hard work of creating real solutions instead of theater that scapegoats law abiding (mostly rural) Americans and inanimate objects.

"Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence, including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure, and the all-pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of slavery and racism." Dr. Gary Kleck (criminologist and professor at Florida State University)

[LAGC]

2. Seriously?

The unrestricted access to and ownership of guns in the United States is largely a result of the lobbying of the gun industry through its surrogate, the National Rifle Association, which wields virtual veto power over the Congress. This despite the fact that a majority of the American public, including the rank and file members of the NRA, approve of restrictions on gun ownership. In particular: 79% of Americans and 63% of gun owners support a requirement of a police permit for gun purchases., and 87% of Americans and 83% of gun owners approve of background checks before purchasing guns.

That is some interesting polling numbers, because that flies in the face of Gallup:





I think I put a little more stock in what they say then some fringe group of sociologists' study.

Face it -- gun control is becoming less popular as more and more people realize its futile.

If people don't have access to guns, they will simply find other ways to kill. Until you address the reasons why people think violence is the answer, you will never solve the "gun crisis" or any other crisis of violence facing America today.

You could implement all the gun registration you want, but it wouldn't have stopped any of the spree killers from obtaining their weapons. If you somehow magically got rid of all guns, the killers would just resort to arson, bombs, knives, poison, etc.

As we've seen in other societies that have tried, the overall murder rate won't go down if you restrict guns. So what's the point (besides pissing off gun owners and getting them to show it at the polls)?

[Doctor_J]

3. You don't think that the same propaganda apparatus that

garnered Sarah Palin 60 million votes for president also contributes to deep denial over gun crime? The same right-wingers who flood the airwaves with anti-democratic, anti-union, anti-worker, anti-tax, anti-choice, anti-woman lies also are in bed with the gun lobby, for money and for another wedge issue.

[gejohnston]

15. to some degree

but the leaders of their opposition are all Republicans. Brady (Ronnie's cabinet), Pete Shields former Du Pont executive and self described conservative, McNamara (now working at the Hoover Institute), Blomberg is just another plutocrat. I can't think of the guy's name, but he used to be a Republican Mayor of Ft. Wayne but now works for Brady.

[X_Digger]

11. If I'm thinking of the same poll that the OP used..

it's a push pull done by Frank Luntz's 'word doctors', whose motto is, "it's not what you say, it's what people hear.'

[speltwon]

4. What crap!

First of all, who cares what the FIREARM homicide rate is? What matters is the homicide rate (or even better, the murder rate, since not all homicides are unlawful).

For example, Japan has a much higher suicide rate than we do. But almost none are committed w/firearms. Here in the US, Japanese Americans also have a very high suicide rate, but a much higher percentage are committed w/gun. Why? Because they are available, but the tragedy is the suicides, not the means.

It is true we have a higher homicide rate than many other countries, but let's look at HOMICIDES, (or more importantly - unlawful homicides) not gun homicides.

And of course our homicide rate is at a multi-decade low. So, it's much LESS of a free-fire zone now than it was 1 or 2 decades ago.

[Richard D]

5. Guns don't kill people . . .

. . . people with guns kill people.

[MicaelS]

7. Let me quote another DU member

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=382418&mesg_id=382448

I am not going to let the actions of criminals be used as an excuse restrict my right to keep and bear arms.

I do not care what the effect is on shooting deaths. You are not going to punish me for the criminal actions of others.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[X_Digger]

9. For a professor of philosophy familiar with critical thinking, you contribute more than you debunk..

So what is to account for those 30,000 gun deaths in the United States? There are many hypotheses, by no means mutually exclusive: A “gun culture” based upon a long historical tradition, the depiction of gun violence in the popular mass media (movies and TV, computer video games), the large number of privately owned firearms (though less, per capita, than in Canada), and finally, the almost total absence of laws restricting gun ownership.

The unrestricted access to and ownership of guns in the United States is largely a result of the lobbying of the gun industry through its surrogate, the National Rifle Association, which wields virtual veto power over the Congress. This despite the fact that a majority of the American public, including the rank and file members of the NRA, approve of restrictions on gun ownership. In particular: 79% of Americans and 63% of gun owners support a requirement of a police permit for gun purchases., and 87% of Americans and 83% of gun owners approve of background checks before purchasing guns.

See USC 922, generally regarding federal gun laws- http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/44/922 and various state gov websites for state law.

Unsupported assertion.

Re the 'majority.. approve of restrictions'..

1) Argumentum ad populum.

2) Factually incorrect.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/145526/Gallup-Review-Public-Opinion-Context-Tucson-Shootings.aspx

The Slippery Slope - (alternatively called "the domino effect" and "the camel's nose"). We've all heard the argument: "once they (meaning , of course, the government) take away our assault weapons, what's to keep them from confiscating all handguns, and then our sporting and target rifles? Where do you draw the line?" An interesting but often overlooked feature of "slippery slope arguments" is that the slope slips in both directions. Hence, the arguments of the gun-control advocates: "once you allow citizens to own assault weapons, why not artillery, or even atomic weapons? Where do you draw the line?"

It's not a slippery slope if you can demonstrate that the intent is to move in that direction.

Such as:

"In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea . . . . Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation." Charles Krauthammer

We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very modest. . . . e'll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time. . . . The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.

Pete Shields, founder of Handgun Control, Inc. which is now the brady campaign

"Brady Bill is "the minimum step" that Congress should take to control handguns. "We need much stricter gun control, and eventually we should bar the ownership of handguns except in a few cases,"

Rep. William L. Clay D-St. Louis, Mo

I think you have to do it a step at a time and I think that is what the NRA is most concerned about, is that it will happen one very small step at a time, so that by the time people have "woken up" to what's happened, it's gone farther than what they feel the consensus of American citizens would be. But it does have to go one step at a time and the beginning of the banning of semi-assault military weapons, that are military weapons, not "household" weapons, is the first step."

Stockton, California Mayor Barbara Fass

"Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal." U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, December 1993

"I am one who believes that as a first step the U.S. should move expeditiously to disarm the civilian population, other than police and security officers, of all handguns, pistols and revolvers ...no one should have a right to anonymous ownership or use of a gun." Dean Morris

"We have to start with a ban on the manufacturing and import of handguns. From there we register the guns which are currently owned, and follow that with additional bans and acquisitions of handguns and rifles with no sporting purpose." Major Owens

Next..

The Fallacy of the Sacred Text. To the NRA and other gun-advocates, the Second Amendment simply means what it says. More precisely, they hold that the second clause regarding "the right to keep and bear arms" means what it says. They conveniently overlook the first clause which justifies the second through the "free state's" need of a "well-regulated militia." And the less said about that word "regulated" the better. Like scripture, say the absolutists, the Constitution is exempt from the ordinary weaknesses of human language such as ambiguity, vagueness and historical contexts. The founding fathers speak, say the absolutists, like the voice of God, unequivocally, clearly, and with ultimate authority.

Accordingly, the Second Amendment "means what it says - 'shall not be infringed.'" Period!

That is a straw man. The NRA (among other gun groups) is fine with regulations against felons, those adjudicated mentally ill, those dishonorably discharged, etc from owning guns. Who actually claims that any right is unlimited?

[micraphone]

13. Arguing about numbers is just a distraction

From the first link:

having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and suicide in the home

[gejohnston]

17. which means what?

"in the apologetics of the tobacco industry" is the one that pissed me off. To compare respected fine liberal criminologists like Don Kates and Dr. Gary Kleck. In 1993, Dr. Kleck won the Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology, for his book Point Blank)to tobacco industry shills is, can't think of the word. That earns Mr. Crisis Papers the Keith Olbermann "that man is an idiot"

[micraphone]

19. It means you did not read my post

I was referring to posters up-thread arguing over numbers while ignoring the main thrust of the OP.

It seems every time anyone posts an OP advocating better - or at least some - gun control, a whole slew of posters appear out of nowhere to argue minor facts and figures while totally ignoring the main point.

From my perspective in another country (New Zealand, actually), 30,000 gun deaths a year in any country would be very serious reason not to ever go there. This number, especially compared with other country stats, is just outrageous and allowing it to continue is a national disgrace.

[gejohnston]

21. OK

But his main thrust is nonsense. Basically he was parroting talking points and propaganda from an advocacy group (as I noted in my earlier posts) that makes stuff up as much as the NRA. No where is the source for that statement you copied. One problem I have is that many control advocates either do not know or are intentionality ignoring our current federal and state laws. I am guessing you are not familiar with our gun laws any more than the average American can name your PM. I read that your parliament gave registration when the police came to the conclusion that it was expensive political theater.
The truth remains that the numbers do not change which means the laws make no difference. Every criminologist I read the studies of came to the conclusion the laws simply be a one for one cancellation. One life that might be saved but will be canceled out by a victim not being able to defend themselves. Read Dr. Kleck's books. As a history lesson, the southern states (former CSA)had some of the strictest gun control laws in the US until the 1960s. For example South Carolina banned privately owned handguns in 1902 (repealed in 1966). Why? These were the state capitols who still flew (South Carolina still does) one of the CSA military flags over their state capitol building. The laws served as part of state sanctioned terrorism. The laws were used to allow corrupt police and the Klu Klux Klan free reign to terrorize black Americans and poor whites. Most of our murder problem (other than gangster vs gangster)is in this region.
To quote Dr. Kleck: "Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence, including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure, and the all-pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of slavery and racism."
Yes I live in a (relatively) violent society. I am more interested in doing the very hard work of fixing a very complex problem with real solutions. I am not (nor are many people right or left) interested in expensive and counter productive political theater that scapegoats an inanimate objects and law abiding (mostly rural like me) people.

[gejohnston]

14. kind of hypocritical

while you pointed out the NRA's fallacies you bought into the fallacies of the other side. If you follow the logic, Norway and Switzerland should be blood baths of Europe. Not. Also, Brady Campaign is just another collection of right wing authoritarians. Seriously, liberals make up the rank and file (who like HCI actually tell rape and robbery victims not to resist in any way) continues to the same canards long debunked by professional criminologists. That is before you get to the usual logical fallacies. The most common are:


When arguing with someone in an attempt to get at an answer or an explanation, you may come across a person who makes logical fallacies. Such discussions may prove futile. You might try asking for evidence and independent confirmation or provide other hypotheses that give a better or simpler explanation. If this fails, try to pinpoint the problem of your arguer's position. You might spot the problem of logic that prevents further exploration and attempt to inform your arguer about his fallacy. The following briefly describes some of the most common fallacies:

ad hominem attacks of gun owners in general and grassroots organizations in general, argument from authority (usually large city police chiefs), argumentum ad ignorantiam (using made up and buzz words and concepts such as "assault weapon" and "gun show loophole", half truths, non sequitur (all time favorite, ignoring historial and cultural influences, if crime changed in those countries from before laws were passed. Related to half truths).