Logic, Guns and Mental Illness

[jpak]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gloria-duffy/logic-guns-and-mental-ill_b_815153.html

<snip>

The laxity of our gun laws in the US -- including the legal purchase of semi-automatic weapons with magazines holding 33 rounds like the Glock 19 used by Jared Loughner and the obviously ineffective methods of checking the backgrounds of handgun purchasers as a way of filtering who has access to guns -- is based on a number of premises. Let's examine one of those principles, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, protecting the rights of US citizens to keep and bear arms as part of a "well-regulated militia." How relevant is this ostensibly sacrosanct right in today's world?

The Second Amendment to the Constitution was drafted and passed by Congress in 1791, during a time when one of the worries of the citizens of our new republic was that democracy could be crushed by a tyrannical government oppressing an unarmed citizenry. Their recent experience had been with the British government of King George III, which imposed on the American colonies taxation without representation, denial of jury trials and other iniquities, and which armed citizen militias had overthrown in the Revolutionary War. The Second Amendment was based on conclusions drawn from this war, where the expeditionary forces of the English King were defeated by the colonists on their own soil using flintlock muskets, rifles and single-shot pistols.

Our founding fathers wanted to ensure that our citizens would continue to have the capability to fight off tyrants, foreign or domestic. So they drafted language for the Bill of Rights that "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."

Fast forward 220 years. Those who advocate minimally regulated freedom to own guns in the US continue to cite the Second Amendment as a basis of their argument. The Second Amendment Foundation, an organization that files lawsuits around the US to promote and protect gun ownership and use, cites the constitutional right to keep and bear arms as its main rationale.

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[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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

[flamin lib]

2. Attack the messenger. That happens a lot here and in a place

that prides itself on logic vs emotion this most basic of logical fallacies sticks out like a sore thumb.

[shadowrider]

4. Hang on. Pro-gun advocates are attacked all the time for posting

off of so-called RW sites where the messenger is attacked (and the poster accused of being RW) without the message being read or understood.

Good for goose and whatnot.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. 'so-called RW sites'

Please enlighten us as to what you consider 'so-called' in the realm of sites that may or may not get called RW on this ostensibly Democratic discussion board. You're the one who broached the subject, after all.

[shadowrider]

7. Fox, Ammoland, NRA, examiner.com - Those sources are summarily dismissed

by a few here as being RW and therefore the info is automatically wrong, regardless the information contained in the article. Basically, any article put up that is pro-gun is considered as RW, period, NOT by all anti's, but there are a few.

[Cirque du So-What]

9. Lemme get this straight...

you're saying Fox News is NOT inherently right-wing? It's the first listed site that made the leap from your cerebral cortex to your fingertips, after all. You *do* mean Fox News, right? Fox. The one owned by Rupert Murdoch & run by Roger Ailes? If you're insisting THAT Fox is NOT RW, then I've proven my thesis in spades.

Buh bye.

[shadowrider]

11. I didn't say fox WASN'T RW, I said if they're used as a source the information

is automatically dismissed regardless what the message is, by CERTAIN posters, not ALL.

[rl6214]

13. Just as the talking heads on MSNBC

are regularly quoted here as sources commenting for gun control. Their opnion carries no more weight than anyone elses. And you can't disprove that they are left leaning.

[Cirque du So-What]

15. You say 'left-leaning' like you're about to puke as the words exit your mouth

The network of Scabro of the Dead Intern - sucha buncha liberals? The same MSNBC that was formerly owned by defense contractor General Electric, purchased by cable giant Comcast, which summarily booted Keith Olbermann without so much as a by-yer-leave? Are a couple of liberal commentators such a burr under your saddle that it prompts you to paint the entire network as 'left-leaning?' This is, after all, a network that has provided a platform for such RW luminaries as Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, John Gibson, Tucker Carlson, and - of course - the aforementioned Joe Scarborough.

If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to blow smoke up my ass. I recall similar arguments with RWers when I visited boards that solicited opinions from all over the political spectrum, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be arguing with someone over the so-called 'liberal media' on an ostensibly Democratic discussion board.

[rl6214]

16. NO

I watch news, I don't watch opinion people at all. Dosen't matter if they are left leaning or right leaning.

I look at the commentator on MSNBC (Mathews, O'donnel, Schultz, Maddow) all liberal the same way I look at FOX (O'reilly, Hannity, Beck, Van susterin, that judge guy, can't think of his name) all have opinions and we all know what they say about opinions.

[Cirque du So-What]

17. Good for you

I don't watch any of them either.

[flamin lib]

8. No, a logical fallacy has no place in a discussion forum regardless of

who indulges.

[speltwon]

20. Pro RKBA etc. does not make one 'pro gun'

necessarily. Similarly, being pro-choice doesn't make one pro abortion. Don't like guns? Don't buy one. Don't like abortions? Don't have one.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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

[Lasher]

5. Some say the Constitution is a quaint old document that's no longer relevant.

Call me old fashioned if you like, but I'm still pretty fond of it.

[rl6214]

10. Another opinion piece

But you know the old saying, opinions are like assholes, everyones got one.

YUP

YUP

YUP

[X_Digger]

12. Gloria's "logic" doesn't follow..

The logic is absolutely clear -- the more guns in private hands, the more people will be shot and killed each year in the US.

Except, the number of guns in private hands has increased while the number shot and killed has fallen.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov

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

[Euromutt]

18. Another graduate of the College of It Stands To Reason

It makes intuitive sense that "more guns => more gun deaths" but when intuition and empirical evidence conflict, intuition loses.

[speltwon]

21. It stands to reason that heavier objects fall to earth more quickly

SCIENCE be damned! And you too, Galileo

[Maine_Nurse]

14. My 1987 state constitution amendment leaves no doubt here. Thankfully.

[speltwon]

19. Considering that the inaccuracies start in the first paragraph...

why bother reading any farther. Start with a flawed premise and...