Gun Control isn't a big issue of mine, but it makes itself an issue because basic reasoning is always an issue of mine.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has a stunning list of gun-control proposals he will introduce as legislation. To dismiss this as something that won't pass is short-sighted. It is an opening gambit, and even if 90% of it is removed on its way to passing, that is still too much. The problem is they will not reduce violence. Not one of them has been shown to reduce violence, which would be the only reason we would ever consider any of them. The controllers ride on the sales pitch that of course they would work. Just look at them, they all sound so smart. You can make a picture in your head, tell yourself a story, write a script that illustrates how well these would work. You can find anecdotes told by sad people (ignoring anecdotes by other sad people) that make unthinking people say "Well we have to do something."
I am suspicious of all advocates who rely on anecdotes instead of numbers. If they had the numbers, they would be shouting them from the rooftops - in addition to telling stories.
Update: Babylon Bee makes an argument superior to mine, as usual.
Gun control is a big issue of mine, and one I've written about extensively. Swalwell is polling at approximately zero percent, but the ground has really shifted towards gun control in recent years. The whole Democratic field is in favor of it -- Bernie Sanders is the most sensible voice on the subject in the field, and he's less sensible than once -- and President Trump is really not reliable either. He's completely in favor of some things that are not great ideas, like red flag laws; and he has already enacted more gun control than Obama did.
ReplyDeleteUltimately we're going to have to defend the proposition that the AR-15 is the gun most protected by the Second Amendment, not the first-most-obvious choice for banning. Both Heller and the earlier Miller decisions have different logics for what the 2A protects, but the AR-15 is the best candidate for protection under either logic.
I wrote about this here, and how these continual attempts at 'assault weapons bans' really are (as the Bee says) about voiding the 2nd Amendment as it exists in trial law.
https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2017/11/there-is-no-2nd-amendment-jurisprudence.html
It's the basic reasoning thing that makes this a big issue of mine. If a politician gets the reasoning wrong on this one, can he be trusted to get it right on other issues?
ReplyDelete@ Donna B - I am embarrassed to say that I had not made that next most obvious step. True.
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