Exact Approximations

Friday, May 12, 2006

Argument Deconstruction

One of my roomates, Sadie Grey's Boyfriend, Uncle Reptile (a.k.a. Ford Prefect) has responded to the argument that guns kill people. It goes something like this:

"If guns kill people than I can blame mispelled words on my pencil."

[My response to the argument was here and subsequently deleted. I'm more interested in what others have to say.]

Any takers? Come on law students, you know you want to bite. Do it anonymously if your argument has no strength. Nony-Burn. Nice.

21 Comments:

  • Sadie can't spell. Sadie hates the comment screen because there is no spellchecker.

    Yeah gotta go with Prefect on this one, SuPrize Surprise.
    Guns are tools. Not intended for murder. People make that choice. Condemn the person, not the tool.

    Like you wanted me to drop my 2 cents...I know.
    I just really wanted to get out the whole "Ican'tspellwell" thing.
    :)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:19 PM  

  • I agree with the reptile :) If you disagree with the reptile or myself, then you have to go against M.A.D.D. The car isn't what is causing the accident's, it is the drunk driver who is CHOOSING to drive drunk! The gun isn't killing the people, the person shooting the gun is CHOOSING to kill someone. If you say that guns kill people, then you have to say that cars kill people, and then you would have a perfect answer to the energy crisis!

    Happy weekend!

    By Blogger Crazy East Coast Uncle, at 2:24 PM  

  • Haha Guns 2
    No Guns 0

    What up now Lex???

    hehehehe

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:31 PM  

  • cars kill people. and pencils make mistakes. but we allow cars and pencils because they have socially useful properties. but note that we regulate cars (and perhaps pencils), and the way people may use them, to minimize the risks associated from their use.

    i guess i don't care whether the blame is, for the purposes of this discussion, located with the gun or the person holding it. I just know that some guns have such little socially beneficial use, and have such dangerous properties, that the scale of regulation should tip heavily against them.

    By Blogger wt, at 2:44 PM  

  • wt, I can appreciate your comments. I grew up in S.F. during which time, the mayor and supervisor were gunned down. Dianne Feinstein became mayor, and that led directly to her becoming a U.S. Senator. She is fiercely against guns.

    However, there are positive uses for guns. Need I remind you of the revolutionary war. And, before you say that was over 200 years ago, and our society is more civilized than that, please read the current headlines! In the constitution, it says "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." Notice the part about a "free" state. I currently question that phrase in referring to the USA right now! If you don't believe me, PHONE ME!

    If you don't understand this comment, I feel sorry for you. Perhaps you don't appreciate your freedoms!

    Just in case you are confused, yes, I am a very liberal in my thoughts. Liberal meaning open minded. If you can come up with a logical, not emotional, arguement to change my mind, I encourage your efforts!

    Waiting for your response!

    By Blogger Crazy East Coast Uncle, at 4:07 PM  

  • WT's comment was thought out and logical.

    Yes, the Constitution says "A well regulated militia" but that means something completely different then than it does now. The militia then is probably more along the lines of the National Guard.

    The need for guns no longer exists today like it did at the Revolution. There's no threat of being over run by invasion or fighting against nature or wars with natives. So WT was right in saying they serve no social utility.

    What if somebody breaks into your house and your gun can protect you? How many "what ifs" are in that situation to begin with? Are you then going to have time to get to your weapon? Or are is your weapon more likely to be taken from you and then thrown out into the stream for a crminal element to use while registered in your name?

    I'm not against guns per se. I think the problem is that the wrong people have them. The problem with guns is that they are abused.

    By Blogger Arbusto, at 4:31 PM  

  • I own guns. I don't feel less safe because I don't have them. i don't feel safer with them.
    I like to hunt, target practice. Hobby.
    Thats all. I think it is your right to own a gun, and I think you should be able to own what ever kind you want. Whether or not it really serves a purpose, is for you to decide.
    I just disagree with the whole, "guns kill people" thing. People kill people. Not guns.
    Thats the point.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:39 PM  

  • I have never owned a gun, nor have I ever shot a gun, (well, BB guns, paint pellets, laser tag and water pistols don't count!)

    I believe in the right to own a gun. Our laws have given us that right for over 200 years. Personally, I don't partake in ownership, but, I don't believe that my personal belief should override the law of the land.

    Arbusto, I do agree that guns are abused, but so is drunk driving. I don't believe that we should take away cars because they are abused. Yes, the wrong people tend to abuse them.

    Unfortunately, the need for guns will always exist. Humans are vicious creatures. Guns happen to be one of the main equalizers. Without getting into a bunch of tangental individual episodes, what other equalizers are there in our society? Knives, police, dogs, or a baseball bat you pick one, and I am sure that you will find an advantage of having a gun around.

    If this were a perfect world, I would agree with you that the need for guns no longer exists, but this is not a perfect world, at least not the one that I live in. Since we don't live in a perfect world, all of those tangetal individual episodes must be lumped together, until the perfect world arrives.

    By Blogger Crazy East Coast Uncle, at 6:15 PM  

  • As to the above argument of pencils v. guns, guns kill people when used as they are intended. Pencils make mistakes when they're used improperly.

    In a more perfect world than the one we're in, we'd have better police forces and educational systems. We'd be fighting the causes of crime rather than at our own doors with guns and baseball bats. Instead, we spend more than the rest of the world combined on some silly "war" and the more important things get nothing. The more important rights we need to use are speech and press and the ability to vote. You having a gun, if you did, is not going to stop somebody from mugging you in the street or robbing your house when you're gone.

    By Blogger Arbusto, at 8:10 AM  

  • Arbusto pencils are like computers, garbage in, garbage out. They are a tool. They don't make mistakes. The user makes the mistakes! Mistakes happen from poor choices. Mistakes with guns happen too. Ask Cheney! I promise you, he will tell you it was the gun's fault that he had a "hunting accident"! Sounds like a poor CHOICE to me!

    In a perfect world, guns would not be needed! Neither would police forces be needed! There would be no crime. Nobody gets mugged and you can leave you home open without it being robbed. Nobody would be fighting. There would be no wars. But alas, that is my perfect world. I guess your perfect world is different! Anytime you want to come by my perfect world and drop in, you are more then welcomed.

    By Blogger Crazy East Coast Uncle, at 9:13 AM  

  • I said "in a more perfect world than the one we live in" and not "a perfect world." I'm not denying your vision of a perfect world, I just know that can't happen.

    You use a pencil as you're supposed to you write on material and spell correctly. You use a gun as you're supposed to, you shoot somebody or something. The accidents come when the gun goes off when it's not supposed to.

    By Blogger Arbusto, at 9:37 AM  

  • Way too early to be having gun debates guys.
    ;)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:45 AM  

  • You are going to get a laugh out of this one! No debating here :)

    I was out playing laser tag after the last post! Now the fun part...

    I found it interesting that the little kids in the laser tag arena now use the laser tag GUNS as a way of tripping the bigger people as they are coming around a corner! As you may know, it is dark inside of the laser tag arena, and the guns, if held out right, can not be seen, when you are running in the dark trying to alude someone, who is shooting lasers at you.

    After you fall on the floor, they then shoot you with their laser getting as many points as they can, while you are trying to pick yourself up. In the meantime, the guy who I was running from, has now arrived, and they have you surrounded.


    This technique caught me by surprise the first time, the second time hurt when I fell, and the third time, unfortunately, I saw the kid first and proceeded to punt him while pretending not to see him. I was pissed that he wasn't using his laser tag gun properly! And it was not by accident what he was doing, neither was the punt! My, what choices we make!

    Outside, I had to apologize to his parents for "not" seeing him before my foot launched him into the next wall, and to make good,(and stop the crying) I bought the kid a soda and another round of laser tag.

    I had to explain to his mother that he was using the gun to trip people coming around the corner in the dark, and that is why I didn't see him. She told him that he had to use his gun for shooting, and not for tripping people. Yes, ma'am!

    Is this a perfect world or what?

    By Blogger Crazy East Coast Uncle, at 12:09 PM  

  • Dean didn't cross the picket line...here is the article from S.F. :

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/13/ap/politics/mainD8HILHC00.shtml

    By Blogger Crazy East Coast Uncle, at 8:15 AM  

  • The day when we read about an assault rifle gathering his fellow AK-47 buddies together to plan an ambush or a .38 caliber flipping out from the pressure of being loaded and shooting fellow weapons in a gun range is the day when we can officially blame guns for gun violence. Until then, the cause of gun violence lies entirely on the trigger finger of the person gripping the weapon.

    And while I support gun control laws and restrictions on who can legally handle firearms, I also realize that any attempts at gun control in this country are now merely throwing out the spent shells with the gun powder because gun control is, for all intents and purposes, impossible in our country. Between the constant misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment by groups like the NRA (how one gets the idea that it's okay for a person to pack an assault rifle to hunt squirrels from an amendment about building a national militia is beyond me) and a culture that has romanticized violence to the point that it's more willing to accept constant images of shooting sprees in modern entertainment than it is the image of the human body (why is the sight of a breast more shocking than a bloddy shootout on television these days?), irresponsible gun use is an inevitable everyday occurrence.

    H. Rap Brown is famous for sayng that violence is as American as cherry pie. (He's also just as famous for being violent enough to help make that statement reality.) Sad to say he was right, mainly because our society is addicted to violence. Ford Prefect was spot on with his statement. I hope that our society can get past our romaticization of guns and need to express our frustrations through violent behavior.

    By Blogger TEM, at 8:51 PM  

  • Lex, that was a fun weekend discussion, what is next ?

    By Blogger Crazy East Coast Uncle, at 5:49 AM  

  • Good form folks, good form.

    On the whole, I fall on the side of WT and Arbusto. I certainly hope that CECU wasn't implying that WT's comment was somehow raveled in emotion, because I just don't see that he made anything other than a rational point.

    Ok, baseline comparison of pencils v. guns v. cars: Any of them can be used for their intended purpose and end in an incorrect result. The difference is in the implications of that incorrect result and the costs we are wiling to incur to gain whatever benefit the object offers. It is far easier and safer to deal with the consequences of a mispelled word than unintended gunshots. Further, a mispelled word was never the result of an accident, it's always the user intending to do one thing (spell correctly) and getting it wrong. The problem with comparing pencils to guns is that 1) there are far different consequences between the person aiming to spell correctly versus a person who aims to shoot correctly. Both can miss their mark. But only one scenario can potentially lead to death. Secondly, when a pencil user sets out to spell and does it with the utmost competency, no one gets killed. We all know that there are plenty of intentional gun-related deaths. The gun versus pencil argument incorrectly focuses on the strength/intent/ability of the user. The weakness of the argument emerges when you focus on the strength of the instrument.

    I think it is also weak logically to compare gun usage to cars, pencils, or anything along those lines. I don't think you can invoke the slippery slope on the issue of gun control. Cars have a utility that goes far beyond that of a gun. Same with pencils, you can erase your mistake, but the ability to write... amazing. But where is the social benefit in guns? Like Sadie said, guns are, for the most part, a hobby. While it is true that guns don't act alone to kill (random urban legends of falling/dropping/bumped guns going off put aside), they are the instrument of a great deal of violence. I get that a gun is an object and can only act as the agent of a person who does the act (trigger-pulling) causing a violent outcome. But that doesn't mean you get to argue that guns are harmless or that because people get in car accidents we have to live with guns. The strength a gun can add to the a person's intentions (or mistakes) is severely heightened with a firearm. If I get crazy-mad and decide to hurt someone, I can do a whole lot more hurt with a gun than with some other weapon, like a knife, or a rock or a cool newspaper bow and arrow like I saw on Mythbusters yesterday.


    A brief note regarding the 2nd Amendment (I think Arbusto was getting to this): The second amendment reads: ""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." Lotsa legal scholars argue that the 2nd amendment has long been misinterpreted by the NRA and pro-gun folks to mean the individual right to bear arms. I follow the line of thinking that the 2nd amendment guarantees the right to possess a firearm in connection with service in a well-regulated militia. Courts have consistently ruled as such. See, e.g.: U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), U.S. v. Hale, 978 F.2d 1016 (8th Cir. 1992), Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55 (1980), United States v. Nelson, 859 F.2d 1318 (1988). Miller refused to strike down a gun control law in the absence of some "reasonable relationship" to the preservation of a well-regulatecd militia. Lewis involved a statute prohbitiig felons from owning firearms. The law was given the A-O-K, under rational scrutiny. Not a fundamental right. But if I did think the 2nd amendment supported an individual right to bear arms, I would favor abolishing it.

    Here's what we know:

    Guns and Kids: In 2002, a total of 2,893 children (under 18) were killed by guns. 1,830 murdered. 828 suicide. 167 accident. That's one kid every three hours.
    http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/pdf/children.pdf

    Having a gun in or around the house makes a person susbstantially more
    likely to become the victim of gun violence. It's estimated that for every 1 self-defense justified shooting in a home, there are 22 criminal, self-inflicted or accidental shootings. Kellermann AL, Somes, G, Rivara, FP et al. Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home. Journal of Trauma 1998; 45:263-267

    Other arguments I seem to remember reading about at Berkeley but can't find super-quick internet citations for: The Availability Argument: people act irrationally when they become overly aggitated, depressed or angry. They're more likely to make rash decisions in these circumstances. If a gun is around during these moments, a person is more likely to use it. The International Argument: Countries where guns are strictly regulated (or alltogether prohibited) have lower muder rates. The Medical Cost Argument: Costs of treating gunshot victims are upwards of a billion per year.

    I just don't see the social utility. I don't see how guns are the "main equalizers" of a some sort of natural human tendency towards violence. In fact, if there is some such natural tendency towards violence, I believe that supports restrictions on gun ownership. CECU notes that knives, guns, baseball bats and police are also equalizers, and that a person confronted with one of these will be glad to have a gun around? I must have misunderstood that argument... My thought is that, again, knives (good for cooking), police (good for keeping you safe, 'specially if you're white); dogs (good for blind people)- all of these, except maybe the baseball bat, have social utility that guns don't offer. And the baseball bat is much less likely to lead to unintentional (or intentional) death. So on the cost/benefit analysis, baseball bats just don't have the dangers that guns have, yet the "hobby-value" is through the roof. (In fairness, I haven't seen recent baseball bat fatality stats). I see that weapons are a needed equalizer in the realm of national security - but that brings me back to my 2nd amendment position. I think those decisions need to be made by people en masse (we can save the arguments re: whether our reps are doing the will of the masses for another post): not under indivualized stresses like fear, anger or hate; not under intoxicated Sunday hunting trips and not shooting at the birds from your backyard in suberbia.

    I think the biggest problem we would be looking at if we wanted to rid ourselves of guns is elluded to by Tem. We would have to deal with a period of time where people least likely to hurt anyone (legal gun owners) would be far outnumbered by people who have obtained guns illegally on the black market. And we all know who would lose their guns first. There would be a period of time where the bad guys would have more guns and it would take awhile to find those and gradually decrease street availability. But I think it can be done. And I think it should be done. And I say, the sooner - the better.

    The facts are straightforward: lots and lots and lots of people are killed or injured each yera as a result of guns. Very few people are protected by owning them. For something that has no social utility other than entertainment, I don't see why we take the risk. As for the potential devastation of a mispelled word, I'll take it in exchange of furthering education, recording history and furthering communication.

    Maybe there should be some "Trade in Your Gun for Pencils" program...

    Cheese and Rice. That was long. I'm a ranter.

    By Blogger Lex Fori, at 5:06 PM  

  • Good show. Well said, ol' bean.

    By Blogger Arbusto, at 5:45 PM  

  • Your rant was worth the length. Take a bow for posing such a good argument.

    Let's do this again sometime.

    By Blogger TEM, at 5:59 PM  

  • So, turns out, this quote is not an Uncle Reptile/Ford Prefect original.

    We have been debating a quote straight from the mouth of....

    Larry the Cable Guy.

    My bad.

    By Blogger Lex Fori, at 8:39 AM  

  • Also while I'm clarifying. I didn't Shepardize the case law. So if there's been some groundbreaking 2nd amendment turnaround in jurisprudence...

    My bad. Again.

    By Blogger Lex Fori, at 8:55 AM  

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