Your Guide to Pro-Gun Argumentation
January 30, 2012 12:56 pm ET by Kenneth Quinnell
Cross-posted from the Florida Progressive Coalition Blog.
I've been debating pro-gun web surfers online (and offline) since 1998, and in that time, there has been almost no variation in the tactics they use in trying to support their belief that guns are awesome and make the world a better place. They may change the specific "evidence" they use, but the underlying arguments don't change. No matter how many times the arguments they use have been debunked, they continue to use the same faulty logic over and over again. Here's a quick guide to the most common arguments you're likely to hear...
Ad hominem attacks: This is common with all right-wing argumentation, but is particularly common with gun proponents. Common insults include: Communist, socialist, liberal, liar, extreme, Democrat, etc. Yes, I actually am a few of those things, but even if I were all of them, none of these things belongs in a serious conversation about gun control or gun rights. Attempt to prove your case without namecalling or dismissing someone based on a label and then we can have a serious conversation. And this doesn't get into the more extreme and insulting namecalling that usually includes homophobia, misogyny and profanity.
Anecdotal evidence: One of the basic rules of science and logic is that one example of anything (or even a few examples) is not proof of anything systematic. Gun owners love to use anecdotal evidence to support their claims and they frequently make broad generalizations and come to definitive conclusions based on individual (or a handful) of incidents, usually of dubious veracity. The entire concept that guns are used more for self defense than they are for crime is based on a "study" that went something like this: "Three people in city A claim to have used guns in self defense, so multiply that times the number of cities in the U.S. and that's how many self-defense instances there are in a year." Completely nonsensical in terms of logic and science.
Conflation of gun crime and non-gun crime: In trying to prove your arguments wrong, they will mix and match the different types of crime as if they are interchangeable, using whatever statistics help make their current argument, regardless of how relevant they are. Gun control proponents argue that gun control lessens gun crime and violent crime and homicide, not other types of crime
Conspiracy thinking: There is widespread conspiratorial thinking among the pro-gun set, arguing that everyone from the Brady Campaign, to the United Nations, to Democrats, to Media Matters, to the Joyce Foundation, is involved in a conspiracy to take away everyone's guns. And probably to kill gun owners on top of that. Or imprison them. Or something. As with most conspiracies, none of it makes any sense and it isn't backed up by any real evidence, it's more about innuendo and guesswork or flights of fancy. And anyone who ever says anything about gun control is part of the conspiracy.
Elevated ego: Few people are more righteous in their own beliefs than the pro-gun contingent. They are convinced not only that their arguments are right, but that they are on a mission from God or something. They also are completely convinced that any sentence they utter is proof coming directly from God and that they are always right. And they are always convinced that everything they say should not only convince you that they are right, but that it would make any sane person convinced of their correctness. On top of that, they are the first to toot their own horns about how badly they invalidated everything you said. At least I'll give them this, they stick together and will team up with each other to congratulate each other for how awesome their arguments are.
False irrelevancy: It's common for pro-gun people to call any information that isn't very, very recent irrelevant because it's old. But we learned about the rotation of the earth hundreds of years ago and that information is still relevant today. Old information is only irrelevant if it has been proven untrue, which is almost never the case when these arguments are made.
Fictional constitutional rights: One should never accuse any pro-gun person making a constitutional argument of being a constitutional scholar. They consistently read things into the document that don't exist and reject things that are both in and outside of the document that count as law, since those things don't agree with their agenda. The text of the Second Amendment is: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Almost every pro-gun person leaves out the militia clause, which is there. Almost every pro-gun person ignores the words "well regulated," which explicitly authorize gun control. Almost every pro-gun person adds the word individual to this text, despite it not being in there. There is no right here to kill anyone. There is no right here to use guns against the government. There is no right here for anything beyond the right of the collective "people" to bear arms as part of a militia. The Supreme Court changed this interpretation way back in 2008. Because Republican appointees who were activist judges decided that was what it meant. The decision wasn't based on precedent or constitutional text.
Geographical nonsense: Every country in the world that has stronger gun control laws has lower rates of gun crime than the U.S., which has weak gun control laws. That's a simple fact and it's the big problem with all anti-gun control arguments, they can't get around this fact, it isn't possible. Another problem is the nonsensical claim that cities and states that have stricter gun control laws haven't eliminated gun crime, so they most not be effective. The reality, of course, is that a strict gun control law in state A is easy to evade if neighboring states B, C, and D all have weaker gun control laws. Guns don't stop at state borders and there is no way to check for them as people cross state lines, that's why gun crime isn't eliminated in those states. However, you do find that states with stricter gun control laws do have lower gun crime rates.
Godwin's rule: Whenever they run out of other talking points, pro-gun people fall back on the argument that "Hitler and Stalin took away people's guns, too," suggesting that any gun control argument is aligned with totalitarian dictators and that gun control automatically leads to mass murder by the government.
"If you outlaw guns, only criminals will have guns": This isn't true, of course, since law enforcement and military would have them, but this is beside the point. It's simply a matter of fact that if fewer guns exist, fewer criminals have them and fewer gun crimes happen.
Logical gymnastics: Pro-gun people love to use logical fallacies when pointing out the weakness of their opponents arguments. The problem is that they rarely use them correctly and they engage in many others while calling them out in others. The important point, though, is that you can't prove that gun control is a bad thing by pointing out logical fallacies used by proponents of stricter laws. Any individual who argues for something or against something can do a bad job at it and the original premise can still be true. Reality is independent of any individual's or group's understanding of it or ability to argue for or against it.
Reinventing the wheel: Every blog post, comment or argument with a pro-gun person has to go back to the very beginning of the debate and re-prove every argument ever, regardless of how many times something has been shown to be true. And if you, personally, can't prove something, they will claim that it isn't true, even if it has been scientifically proven elsewhere. I do not have the time, nor the interest, in proving every fact about the debate every time I say it. Nor should I have to. That's not how intelligent conversation works. Scientists and people interested in truth build off of previous information and previous evidence, they don't start at the beginning every time they broach a subject.
Source hypocrisy: Gun proponents automatically reject any source that comes from a liberal or a pro-gun control source, yet they will endlessly cite pro-gun sources (including Gun Cite), without even a hint of irony or acknowledgement of the hypocrisy of such an argument.
Source rejection: The only valid source to a gun proponent is one that agrees with them. They automatically reject any evidence that comes from a left-wing or anti-gun source and reject any journalist or scientist who provides evidence that disagrees with them instantly. Unless that same source later agrees with them. Then they'll say it was right all along. Facts and reality are neutral to your argument (or mine). You cannot reject a source based on the fact that they came to a conclusion you don't like.
"You'll never stop criminals from getting guns, so gun control laws are ineffective": This one shows a basic misunderstanding of the concept of problem solving. There are few, if any, problems that can be 100% eliminated. That isn't the goal with real-world gun control laws. The goal is to lessen gun crime as much as possible, which is very clearly shown to happen when common sense gun control laws are put into effect.
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Lets give it a whirl, OK?
Kenneth Quinnell writes: “The text of the Second Amendment is: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Almost every pro-gun person leaves out the militia clause, which is there."
I don’t, so lets continue.
Kenneth Quinnell writes: “Almost every pro-gun person ignores the words “well regulated,” which explicitly authorize gun control. ”
Mr. Quinnel, although this argument is frequently made by persons with little knowledge of the subject matter, or used as an unstated argument by those who know better (letting an uniformed reader assume something that is untrue so as to obtain their agreement based upon a misconception), your assertion is incorrect. First, the term “well regulated” is an adjective which describes a certain type of militia. You seem to wish to read it as a “well regulated right of the people”, rather than as “a well regulated militia”. Secondaly, the terminology describes something (in this case a militia) which functions properly or efficiently. The term originated with the adjustments made to a pendulum clock. The action of turning the screw to adjust the length of the pendulum was known as “regulating” (some pendulum clocks to this day are called “regulators”). When a clock was properly adjusted so it kept the correct time, it was termed “well regulated”. The adjective quickly spread to describe anything that was functioning properly and is still used today in connection with not only pendulem clocks but also digestive systems… you eat bran and fiber to become well regulated.
This is really not an issue amongst scholars of the 2nd Amend, regardless of which side of the argument you are on, as an amicus brief by Linguists and English Professors in support of the District of Columbia in the Heller case clearly demonstrates. See, Amicus Brief of “Professors of Linguistics and English, Dennis E. Baron, Ph.D. Richard W. Bailey, Ph.D. and Jeffrey P. Kaplan, Ph.D. In Support of Petitioners”, DC v Heller. See also, Hamilton’s Federalist #29 which states: “[T]he degree of perfection” through regular “military exercises that militia members had to achieve before they could earn “the character of a well regulated militia.” ”
A contemporary usage as contained in the Journals of the Continental Congress:
“That the strength of the Wabash Indians who were principally the object of the resolve of the 21st of July 1787, and the strength of the Creek Indians is very different. That the said Creeks are not only greatly superior in numbers but are more united, better regulated, and headed by a man whose talents appear to have fixed him in their confidence. That from the view of the object your Secretary has been able to take he conceives that the only effectual mode of acting against the said Creeks in case they should persist in their hostilities would be by making an invasion of their country with a powerful body of well regulated troops always ready to combat and able to defeat any combination of force the said Creeks could oppose and to destroy their towns and provisions.” Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 MONDAY, JULY 28, 1788. ”
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(jc034117))
You do not really think that the Continental Congress thought that Creek Indians had better laws regulating their warriors than did the Wabash Indians, do you? What “a well regulated militia” describes is a military body composed of ordinary citizens that is an effective and efficient fighting force. Now let us substitute our respective definitions into the 2nd Amend:
Your version: “A militia which has good gun control laws, being necessary to the security of a free state…”
My version: A military body composed of ordinary citizens that is an effective and efficient fighting force, being necessary to the security of a free state…”
I do not know about you, but I would rather be defended by the latter rather than the former.
Kenneth Quinnell writes: ” Almost every pro-gun person adds the word individual to this text, despite it not being in there. There is no right here to kill anyone.”
The 2nd Amendment protects a preexisting individual right to have arms for self defense and for all other lawful uses. The core of that right is self defense and if that involves “killing someone” with the protected arm, so be it. See, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765)Book the First : The Rights of Persons, Chapter the First : Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals, at 125. By protecting this individual right, the 2nd preserves the capacity of the state to form a well regulated militia from the ranks of its citizens regardless of anything the federal government might do, whether it be a failure to adequately provide for arms for the militia through benign negligence, or whether the federal government decides to extinguish the militia totally, for whatever reason. It provides an unassailable armory from which the well regulated militia can be resurrected and armed in the event of an emergency.
Kenneth Quinnell writes: “There is no right here to use guns against the government.”
There is no right contained in the 2nd Amend to use guns against lawful governmental authority. There is a right in the 2nd to use arms against governmental usurpations of power. See, Madison’s Federalist #46. Thus, for example, the use of arms to put down a military coup. This is what Blackstone referred to when he described the preexisting right as protecting and preserving a fundamental right of “resistance” (to prevent governmental usurpation) and “self preservation” (self defense).
Kenneth Quinnell writes: “There is no right here for anything beyond the right of the collective “people” to bear arms as part of a militia.”
All nine members of the Supreme Court found that the 2nd Amend protects an individual right and not a collective right. Your argument has been consigned to the ash bin of history, and for good reason…. From the dissent of Breyer in DC v Heller:
“I take as a starting point the following four propositions, based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I believe the entire Court subscribes:
(1) The Amendment protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred. See, e.g., ante, at 22 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 1 (STEVENS, J., dissenting).” Id. at page 3 of the slip opinion.
Kenneth Quinnell writes: “The Supreme Court changed this interpretation way back in 2008. Because Republican appointees who were activist judges decided that was what it meant. The decision wasn’t based on precedent or constitutional text.”
Incorrect. Perhaps you may wish to cite prior cases decided by The Supreme Court which support your position? Since there is only one case in which the meaning of the 2nd Amend was actually litigated and thus necessarily decided the issue so as to have precedential impact, you must be relying upon United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). I suggest you read that case again and then read the case upon which Miller relies, to wit: Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154.