The internal flaw of the gun conspiracy theorists

Or as David Aaronovitch's pointed out about Alex Jones: if he knows all this top secret truth, and is still alive, does that mean that it's all bollocks, or is Jones part of the conspiracy?


"You are the worst person I've ever interviewed...We have an idiot on the programme today,"

Anyway, like the idiot above, your premise contains an internal flaw:

"Mass shootings, in particular, are staged by the government to enable the swift enactment of draconian gun laws."

The US sees far more mass shootings, and gun violence in general, than any other DEVELOPED nation, yet gun laws have gotten weaker for the most part if anything.  Sure, there have been some gains in some states, but nothing like what happened in Australia, which is what you assert should have happened.  In fact, the laws enacted in Australia would be mild according to what you claim.

Instead, what we see is reality denial, with above idiot being one of the worst offenders.

I'll offer a counterquestion to your statement:  why should we give a fuck about your rights if you don't care about others?

You have given up your place at the table when you can walk up to a victim's family member and assert that their pain is somehow "false" or "fake".

You are the person who is unreal.

The logical fallacy of false equivalency.

The person who wrote this may have been killed by a gun nut.  Anyway, this is pretty useful since this is a type of fallacious argument which is used a lot in this "debate".This is a wonderful piece-- it is a clear explanation of why certain gun lobby talking points are ridiculous.

What is a false equivalency? It is a logical fallacy.
You are a libtard/pinko/homo, why should I listen to you? Logic rules remain the same wherever you fall on the political spectrum. Even after showing gun owners the Wikipedia entry, they will continue to use it immediately afterwards and cling to it desperately. That is why this was created.
What is the definition of false equivalency? “False equivalence is a logical fallacy which describes a situation where there is a logical and apparent equivalence, but when in fact there is none.” Wikipedia
I still don’t believe you. What is the structure of the argument? If A is the set of c and d, and B is the set of d and e, then since they both contain d, A and B are equal. Id.
That doesn’t make sense to me. Why does my argument look nonsensical to people who aren’t supporters of my position? Well, when was the last time you heard of someone bringing a car into a school or movie theater and killing and wounding 70 people with it in 4 minutes? Here is how your argument appears to people without a gun proliferation agenda:
Nuclear weapons explode (c) but are still just tools (d). Guns are merely tools (d) that shoot people (e). Since they are both (d) tools they are both equivalent. Because they are merely (d) tools, nuclear weapons should be treated the same as guns under the Second Amendment, and citizens should be allowed to conceal carry them into schools, courthouses, or government buildings.
Well that’s a stupid argument, what are other kinds of false equivalencies that gun owners use?
The variations are endless, but here are some common ones, all of which have actually been used on reddit:
-Guns and alcohol are equivalent, because they both ______
-Guns and cars are equivalent, because they both ______
-Guns and knives are equivalent, because they both ______
-Guns and bleach are equivalent, because they both ______
-Guns and fists are equivalent, because they both ______
-Guns are equivalent to soda, because they both ______
-Gun and stamp collecting are equivalent, because they both _____
-Guns and banana cream pie are equivalent, because they both____
-Guns and swimming pools are equivalent, because they both _____
-Guns and frying pans are equivalent, because they both _____
-Guns and _______ are equivalent, because they both _____
And those are all false equivalencies? Yes.
Are you sure? Yes.
Really? Because I would really like that to be not true. Everyone in /r/guns uses them constantly, and they get tons and tons of upvotes for it! Doesn’t that mean they are even a little right? No. Justin Bieber is pretty popular within his bubble, doesn’t mean it makes sense to people viewing it from the outside.
Can you make the logical fallacy appear absurd in a different way? Sure. Imagine cars are just as legal as they are now, resulting in 33,000 traffic fatalities each year. Now, imagine guns are completely banned and there are zero deaths from their use each year. Would the argument that guns are exactly equivalent to soda sway people to change the law?
If our hypothetical government body could pass a law that instantly implemented the current United States gun proliferation laws while simultaneously handing out 270,000,000 guns to the civilian population, would they do it based upon the fact that obesity is also a problem in the United States so we shouldn't worry about people being shot?
Considering the fact that 30,000 people would then be killed each year and 100,000 wounded, the answer is likely no. And they would certainly not do so under the pretense that soda and firearms should be treated equivalently. Or cars. This example applies to each of the false equivalencies given above. The argument is patently absurd.
Why has this been downvoted a million times? Because there are few good arguments for guns in our society so taking away a popular one, however incorrect it may be, further weakens the talking points. We also only send pro-gun types here to view this and they are not particularly happy to learn that their father was wrong when they taught them this false equivalency or that they have been using a really stupid argument around their loved ones unchecked for most of their lives.
They may also be embarrassed to learn that their loved ones may already know this and are just pretending to agree with them.
What do you think about gun control? The ability to use logic and to correctly reason should be a basic skill for everyone, but is essential for those who carry lethal weapons. Gun owners should have to complete the following sentence before purchasing a gun to show that they can perform basic reasoning: Comparing guns to ________ is a false equivalence because __________.

Lousy arguments

I'm not sure what some commenters are trying to prove with their comments, but if it is that they are responsible people who should be allowed a firearm--they are failing miserably.

One person is a case in point, I know he has an arrest, which shouldn't be used against him in court, but he tends to get drunk and leave abusive comments. Is that a person I really think should be allowed to own an object with a purpose to cause serious harm or death when used properly?

Gun control is about making sure that people who shouldn't have such items find it difficult to obtain them, which generally works when given the proper tools to enforce such laws.

In fact, it is truthful to say when someone who has a history of mental illness, antisocial behaviour, addiction, or frequent contacts with the police  says "you want to take our guns", that the answer is indeed "Yes", but that is because you probably are not the sort of person who should have a gun.

That may get all the gun loons in a corner who are already worried that some anonymous government agency is reading their thoughts through microchips to get even more paranoid and say "told ya so" with that paragraph being taken out of context, which is just plain off too bad.

So, I really don't give a shit if you know "who I really am" or where "I really live" because there are at least 5 CCTV cameras on my block and you will pass by many more to get to me.  Those are more useful in preventing your gun violence than more guns are.

Happy nightmares.

If you want to try to persuade us that you're not one of the 10, 20, 30, 40, and so on percenters--try to act normal and responsible.  That starts with not commenting while drunk, and not leaving abusive comments.

There is something about the relative anonymity on blogs which gives people a false sense of security in behaving badly.  Too often there is something about the presumption of empowerment on the part of weak people when they get their hands on a firearm that does the same thing - it turns them into assholes with poor judgment who still fail to impress anyone with their reasoning - OR their gun.

Gunloon non-arguments addressed

Let's see, there are so many ways they can take the argument off track starting out with saying something that is absolutely off topic, which is a good argument for moderation.

But let's start with something like "it's plagiarism", "copyright material", etcetera:

Serious non-argument for not addressing the actual assertion. Ironically used since gunloons tend to repost the same material all over the internet since it usually increases the position on search engine results.

That's probably why they hate it when the other side does it as well.

Saying something is plagiarism without addressing the substance is one of the more intellectually lazy attempts to silence the opposition that I know. This isn't an academic review--it's an effing blog fer chrissake!

The problem is that they are trying to block the dissemination of information while stacking the deck for their own.

Can't forget the old ad hominem, or some other comment about the person, rather than what has been mentioned in the post. Come on, people, address the topic that has been raised--not get personal.

The Gish Gallop, which is where you drown the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time: LegalEagle45 did that.

Basically, we are talking about tricks to keep from really addressing the issue and try to silence the opposition.

Yeah, yeah, you're gonna get all pouty on me and say, "but you're moderating our comments!"

Yep, we started doing it because you couldn't act like adults and try to have a real conversation.

See:

• Recognizing Propaganda Techniques and Errors of Faulty Logic

Apples and Oranges

OK, you want to pretend that a firearm is "just an inanimate object" when it's not--it's a fucking weapon. They are intended to be used as weapons to injure or kill.

I've got better "inanimate objects" for you to understand how stupid that argument is: Nuclear Weapons or Nerve Gas.

After all, they are perfectly safe if you follow the safety rules. In fact, it is so safe that one site I worked at worked with nerve gas in an urban area! Betcha didn't know that the US Army plays with the stuff at Fort Detrick and the Aberdeen Proving Ground right in the NorthEast Megapolis!

Come on, don't you want your neighbour to have some VX or Sarin in his garage?

How about a Thermonuclear weapon--and I'm not tallking the piddly things they dropped on Japan, but a big job in the megaton range?

After all. they are just inanimate objects--what's to worry?

It's just an inanimate object.

More Cars and Guns

Firearms were used in 12,632 homicides while cars were used in 30 homicides during 2007. Firearms were used in 17,352 suicides and cars were used in 131 suicides during 2007. according to WISQARS.

Rather than address the issue that firearms are weapons, and as such are intended to cause injury or death if used properly. The gun-car (or other similar argument) would rather deflect the issue onto other objects which have utility for purposes other than to injure or kill.

• Cars are designed to be used as transportation
• Firearms are weapons with the purpose to injure or kill.
  
• When cars are used properly, as pretty much are, they provide transportation.
• When used properly, guns injure or kill.

see also:
That Old Car-Gun Analogy
Risk Factor

That Old Car-Gun Analogy.

Every so often, the pro-gun side likes to pull out the fact that people die from things other than guns. That's sort of obvious since life is the major cause of death in the ultimate sense. And these are parallels that are pulled out only when it seems useful to try to discredit the gun safety movement.

But these are faulty analogies in that they assume that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they are necessarily alike in some other respect.

So, guns kill 31,224 people and Traffic fatalities from all causes amount to 44,128 people during 2007 according to WISQARS. Doesn't that mean that motor vehicles are more lethal than guns?

I should point out that firearms were used in 12,632 homicides while cars were used in 30 homicides during 2007. Firearms were used in 17,352 suicides and cars were used in 131 suicides during 2007. according to WISQARS. So, when people intend to kill, their method of choice between these two is the firearm, not the gun. That demonstrates that the firearm is the more lethal choice of the two.

There are a multitude of problems with this comment. The first being that motor vehicles were not created to kill. They are a mode of transportation for people and goods. That means their usefulness derives from something other than lethality (which is where this sort of argument always fails). Sometimes people do die in car accidents. But, the number of people dying in car accidents has decreased because of various laws making cars safer and making people safer drivers.

And one has to ask how many miles are driven each year without accident?

Outside of personal protection and hunting, both involving killing or wounding, guns have no other legal uses other than target practice, skeet shooting and so forth. I suppose you could use a gun as a hammer, but that would not be what the gun was designed for. I think using a hammer to kill would be more effective (as one gun defender suggested) than using a gun as a hammer. However, there is that trouble with the reloading the hammer to shoot at a crowd. Moreover, why don’t the people comparing automobiles to guns ever suggest liability insurance be mandated for gun owners, that we have to take a gun proficiency test, and register our guns like we do our cars?

It’s because people only use the analogies when it suits their defense of guns. If they actually thought it through, they would see the analogy is a poor one.

Why can’t gun advocates admit that guns were created to kill? Isn’t that the point of a gun, to kill or wound an intruder or take down your dinner, deer, rabbit, quail or other game animal? That is the primary function of a gun. Unless, you are suggesting eating road kill on a regular basis.

It's is true that cars do kill people but how many people use their cars to intentionally commit murder?

Cars are usually involved in accidents.
Guns are usually used to intentional harm or kill as well as being involved in accidental shootings.

But the place where the car gun analogy really fails is that cars are highly regulated: registration,safety features, and so on. There's even the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which is supposed to “Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes” through writing and enforcing safety, theft-resistance, and fuel economy standards for motor vehicles. Not to mention it exercises more control over vehicle manufactures and importers than does BATF.

The gun lobby doesn't work on making guns safer. There's no license, no registration, no requirement for training to purchase firearms. The firearms industry is exempt from product liability suits, vehicle manufacturers are not.

And there's an interesting parallel to be made if you are going to make this analogy. If we put children in car seats when they're in cars, then why can't we have some type of law that prevents children from gaining access to weapons, or more preferably, makes gun owners more responsible. If you have a gun, you own it, and some child accesses it, you're responsible.

Quite simply: Guns are made to kill people. Cars are not. Guns are designed to be weapons, vehicles are designed for transportation. That is why this analogy, and ones like it, fail.

Even more importantly,if you are going to make this argument, then you open yourself up to the fact that guns need to be highly regulated, not left unregulated as they are now. Especially when other, less lethal items (e.g.,Tedd Bears), are highly regulated. Does that make sense?

See also:
Risk Factor
The Logical Fallacies: False Analogy
Red Herring Fallacy

TS's dilemma

Speaking about surplusage, why bother with the second amendent when Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 of the constitution already grants congress the power to organize and arm the militia? Are you saying a whole amendment to the bill of rights is mere surplusage? Or is it completely separate from Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 and affirms an individual right of the citizens to keep and bear arms- which the aforementioned clause does not?

If the Second Amendment right "pre-exists the Constitution", then The Second Amendment is surplusage--Why have this right if everyone knew it exists?

If Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 has no effect--why have the Second Amendment since it would be surplusage?

Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 does not have effect--then it is surplusage.

Let me here call your attention to that part which gives the Congress power "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States--reserving to the states, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither--this power being exclusively given to Congress.--Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention, 5 June 1788 Elliot 3:51--52

Note that Henry is specifically addressing Congress's Powers under Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 and mentions them in this quote.

But, it's a right of the people.

This is law, not math, not science, not philosophy--one uses the rules of legal construction, not the rules of other disciplines.

The Second Amendment only addresses the concern expressed by Patrick Henry: "If they (Congress) neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia".

BTW, if you are going to talk about Occam's razor, which is a principle that generally recommends, when faced with competing hypotheses that are equal in other respects, selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions.

This is the solution which gives you that answer.

The ad hominem

The ad hominem is a logical fallacy in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:

Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem of any kind is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made in most cases or the quality of the argument being made.

Additionally, the ad hominem is used when the person making it has no ability to refute the argument being made.