Quote:
Originally Posted by
tonton 
Guns don't kill people... Idiots kill people.
And there sure are a hell of a lot of idiots, so we're better off not letting them have guns.
That's true, but probably not strictly relevant to the issue, since when it comes to accidental death, idiots manage to kill themselves and others in all kinds of creative ways. The anti-gun control slogans are particularly annoying though, because they are themselves classic examples of intentional logical fallacies.
"Guns don't kill people - people kill" people manages to be an incomplete observation and an irrelevant conclusion. Without stating it, it is clearly predicated on the assumption that it is the person, rather than the gun, who has the intent to kill. Superficially correct, although it ignores that the gun itself is specifically designed to kill - that is the primary design criterion for all light arms. So even if we cannot assign intent to the gun, that is its purpose. It is incomplete, though, because a more reasonable restatement of it would be "Guns don't kill people - people kill people, mostly with guns". Stated in that form, we see evidence of a problem with at least two elements - people with a desire to kill, and the ready availability of an effective mechanism for them to do so; it is an irrelevant conclusion to imply that we should only tackle one element.
Standard problem solving strategy suggest that the most effective way to tackle a problem is to address all its contributing factors, which in this case, of course, means to try to treat and control those people and to attempt to restrict their access to guns. The NRA undoubtedly understand this logic, and, for example, have publicly said that they do not oppose more rigorous background checks, but they are clearly worried that the extent of any measures will significantly impact the bottom line of the gun manufacturers who fund them. They are probably right to worry - not because gun ownership would actually be more restricted for law-abiding citizens, but simply because there might be more checks, more paperwork, stricter storage requirements etc., and the erosion of casual availability would decrease sales to those who only bother to acquire guns because it is currently so easy to do so. And, of course, possible real restrictions on sales of the more lucrative semi-automatic rifles. Money wins this argument, and so we see the depressingly inevitable strategy of intentionally deceptive straw man arguments used to stoke the ancient fears of the rise of dictatorship combined with a (literal) call to arms to protect the 2nd amendment, all in an attempt both to disguise and further the real goal of protecting the gun manufacturers' profits.
And so, for example, we get the spectacularly fatuous "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun", which, remarkably, packs begging the question (it assumes that the problem starts after he acquired the gun and that he cannot be prevented from getting the gun in the first place), non sequitur (there are clearly many ways to stop such an individual) and straw man (that the intent of gun control is to prevent good guys from having guns) all into one short sentence. It is sad that so many people fall for this nonsense.
