'Common Sense' Gun Control & a professional counterargument to this reasoning pitfall

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Common sense gun control is screwing/ punishing over 99.99% of people to stop .01% from doing something unsavory.

Facts are for nerds that read stuff, not the politically involved.

The fact that a majority of gun owners will not commit any serious crime with their guns let alone have to use it to defend themselves, tells me the politicians that push that garbage have a deeper more subcutaneous agenda besides saving children, cops and disadvantaged minorities.

The people and voters that preach this stuff are just idiots. If you want to sacrifice yourself to a murder, rapist, home invader, disgruntled ex etc. because you fear a hunk of metal with springs and stuff, be my guest.
 
You have to wonder where the impetus for gun control is coming from. With a few notable exceptions, the politicians are not out in front on this, but are responding to perceived pressures. For example, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was pro-gun (even endorsed by the NRA) when she represented an upstate New York House district. After she was appointed to represent the state as a whole, in the U.S. Senate, she did a 180 degree turn on guns. Why? Because the "powers that be," on a statewide level in New York, are in favor of gun control and they won't tolerate someone who doesn't follow that policy. Who are these self-appointed mavens? Media people? Hollywood glitterati? Ivory tower academics? (I don't believe there's a groundswell of demand for gun control from ordinary voters. "Mass organizations" for gun control, such as "Moms Demand Action," are basically Astroturf organizations, created and funded by the same media-Hollywood-academic complex.)
 
I am sure there are, in fact, some "common sense" gun laws. "You can't shoot off a gun in a stadium to celebrate a touchdown". That specific law may or may not exist anywhere (verbatim) but I think we could probably agree that's a common sense gun law...such as it is.

The problem is that the wide variety of people in this country could easily come up with about 100,000 sentences like that one...all kinds of stuff. If you then assigned a unique number to the relative "sensibility" of the thing (not possible but stay with me) where my proposed language above might be a 10. "Don't shoot an innocent, non-threatening, not aggressive, unarmed child under the age of 10" gets the 1, etc. Ok so we have 100,000 "laws" ordered in order of "sensibility".

Where the heck do you draw the line??? That's the problem!!! What really is a "common sense gun law"? That's the slippery slope. We all here would expect the line to be drawn just below all the stupid, harmful, hurtful, criminal, and blatently negligently unsafe stupid stugg people should not do. But it wouldn't be!!! They'd start to get "proactive". More thing fall above the line. Then people start thinking "outside the box". More things. Then the freefall starts and the line starts to plummet closer and closer to row 100,000...and all of a sudden we're the UK where, as far as I know, the only gun law that falls below the line is "some people, under some circumstances, with much government oversight, and after a comprehensive approval process, and with ongoing burden on the owner to continuously demonstrate whatever, can own a firearm". 99,999 things above the "sensible" line and just that one below it.
 
If you take the premise that everyone has common sense, then there would be no need for common sense guns laws. People would intuitively do the right thing without explicit instruction. Therefore, it is an illogical argument.
 
If their goal is a society without guns, let's look at Great Britain. Almost no gun crime because they confiscated the guns from the citizenry. Paradise, right?

Uh, no. They had to go to plastic pints in the pubs because too many were using the glass pints as a weapon. Now there's a war on kitchen knives, and you can't even purchase a dull butter knife if you're under 18. Too many people using knives in violent attacks, gotta get rid of the knives. Next will be cricket bats, then tennis racquets, then ping pong paddles. But wait! A shoe makes a nice weapon, and everyone has TWO of them. No more hard soled shoes allowed. It will never end. There is no reachable goal.
 
What's happened in Britain is exactly relevant to this discussion of "common sense." The current moves there to ban sharp knives, etc., transcend the bounds of all common sense and have become surrealistic. Yet, this is where those advocating "common sense" restrictions in this country are going to logically end up. Every restriction that fails to prevent shootings (because nothing can prevent shootings with 100% certainty) is going to lead to calls for further restrictions, until we end up like Britain or Australia. The time and place to stop this slippery slope is here and now.
 
I try to make gun control fantasies personal to the proposer. Such as "you actually believe it is reasonable to put me in a rape cage because I own a metal box with a spring that holds 30 cartridges that I've owned peaceably for 30 years and now some bureaucrat wants to make contraband?" Or "If background checks worked then police locker rooms wouldn't need locks, federal prisons wouldn't have drugs traded among inmates and Bill Clinton would have never qualified to control nuclear launch codes"
 
You want a really well thought out, professional response? Here it is in a nutshell:

We already HAVE "common sense" gun control. And here it is:

1. Treat every firearm as if it's loaded.

2. Never point a firearm at anything you are not willing to destroy.

3. Always be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

4. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are on target and ready to fire.


If they don't accept this, then they're not talking about "common sense" at all.

:)
 
Common sense is one of my least favorite phrases in the English language. Claiming something as being "common sense" is most frequently resorted to by individuals who are uninformed, intellectual lazy, and/or incapable of discerning nuance. Its use in making any proposal or argument should immediately cause people to be very skeptical of the benefit or legitimacy of a proposal or argument. When I read or hear anyone propose "Common Sense Gun Control" I immediately dismiss the individual as being insufficiently knowledgeable to be credible.
 
Response to the call for common sense gun laws:

There are already laws on the books against murder, manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, threatening with a deadly weapon (brandishing), discharging a firearm within the city limits. Minors, Felons and "prohibited" people (mentally ill, non-citizens, adjudicated domestic abusers in some jurisdictions, etc.) cannot legally buy a firearm.

There is no law that you can pass that can prevent a determined, criminally minded person from illegally obtaining and illegally using a firearm.
 
Ok...so now we have dismantled the "common sense gun control" argument.

I have noticed gun control advocates love to link...
1) "well, this gun control legislation is just common sense and simple logic" -->
2) "well you don't need a __________...no one needs a ________ unless they are [doing something bad] "

We just crapped all over '1', so now what is a crafty response for '2' that will tie the two together and literally burn this argument to the ground?

(Most importantly, what response will show people whom are not yet decided where they stand on the 2A that this type of gun control reasoning is bogus and that they should dig deeper into this topic before accepting what a pro gun control source is claiming?)
 
cdk8 wrote:

1) "well, this gun control legislation is just common sense and simple logic" -->
2) "well you don't need a __________...no one needs a ________ unless they are [doing something bad] "

We just crapped all over '1', so now what is a crafty response for '2' that will tie the two together and literally burn this argument to the ground?
Click to expand...

The response to #2 is that "need" has nothing to do with it. When you get right down to it, in this day and age no one "needs" to go hunting; therefore there is no "need" for hunting guns. No one "needs" to go target shooting; therefore there is no "need" for target guns, and so on. Who is going to be the arbiter of what society "needs" and does not "need"? Some ivory-tower academic or media maven?

In our civic system, as exemplified by the Founding Fathers, the main "need" was the need to prevent tyranny. That's really what the 2nd Amendment was all about. The Founders were not concerned with hunting, target shooting, gun collecting, or even personal self-protection. (These were all universally accepted at the time.)
 
Here's how I look at it:

1) "Gun Control" doesn't express intention. In other words, why are we controlling guns? Is there a limited supply and we need to make sure they reach those most in need? The term assumes we all agree on a problem. Therefore it is a bad term.
2) If the goal is gun safety, the one thing most research and common sense agrees on is that training increases safety. Therefore, the single most "common sense" action is to make training inexpensive and widely available.
3) If training is tied to purchase, carry, or use of guns you create a situation where a large segment of the population is both unfamiliar and untrained, yet has access to guns. This is common sense. One member of a family buys a gun, gets a CHL, etc, and everyone in that family, plus potentially friends of that family, has access. So training should not be tied to purchase or use.
4) because of the above, the single most common sense gun safety step that could be taken would be to add gun training to the common core curriculum taught to k-12 students in the USA, while simultaneously making free gun training available to everyone. It isn't much different from US high schools teaching students to drive automobiles. The gun training should follow a similar pattern with a classroom portion and range time. The difference is that driving is a privilege while owning guns is a right, so firearm training should be more broadly available.

If someone says they want common sense gun laws, but balks at the idea of universal real firearm training in public schools, not tied to specific programs or activities, they are lying. They don't care about common sense. They have an agenda and think "common sense" will fly under your radar.
 
I always ask the question;

Do you feel if we had more common sense gun control, it would decrease gun violence?

The answer is always yes.

Then I ask;

Has anyone ever figured out why all of those guns are so violent?

Then I get "it's not the guns, it's the people using them, stupid."

Sometimes I get "it's people with guns, stupid"

My response is, do all of those guns have people? Do the guns decide who they're going to hang out with?

A truthful response would be "no, the people decide when to use a gun"

So we always get back to the people.

My last response is always, if the gun isn't responsible for the crime then why are we trying to control them? Why don't we focus on the real problem here?

Common sense gun control and gun violence are terms near and dear to the AG crowd. They coined them for their agenda. Use it against them.
 
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There are two types of people I've debated gun laws with:

1) The hard line gun control types. They are right, you are wrong, and disagreeing with them is proving that you don't care about children being murdered as long as you can keep your guns as a substitute for your small wiener. Identify them early so you don't waste your time debating them, you would be more productive smashing your thumb with a hammer.

"When you feel open to hearing objective facts vs subjective opinion polls, then we can discuss this further."

2) The middle of the road undecided. They often have little to no experience with firearms but shyly regurgitate media sound bites as fact (cause the man in the picture box said so). They are the types that, if debated without making them feel like a fool, are the ones you can win over with facts, analytical logic, and examples from history. They are also likely to take you up on an offer to go to the range and see what these "guns" are all about first hand. That is the core group you need to win over.

"why do you feel this or think that?" Let them answer, then rebuttal with facts, FBI crime statistics, and history examples. And I've found analogies to be a piss poor way of getting the point across, because guns are such a unique topic that doesn't readily compare to anything else.
 
cdk8 said:
Does anyone else find this whole "common sense gun control" argument to be frustrating and kind of dumb? The basic premise of the argument more or less is intended to make a certain ideology appear to be the only practical value, and given it is based on a reasoning that everyone 'should' have, disagreeing with common sense gun control means you are illogical.

I've seen some debates where pro gun control candidates have made this argument, and pro gun rights candidates did not have what I consider to be a strong response. If you were to get backed into a corner with this argument, and the quality of your counterargument could affect how other undecided Citizens begin to form opinions regarding the 2A, how would you respond? If this topic came up in a debate, how would you like to hear a pro gun rights candidate respond?

I have moved in the direction of pointing out that a consensus of ideology within a certain group of people (large and small alike), even when promoted as a conclusion of common reason, is not necessarily strategically or systematically logical. More importantly, it is not necessarily ethical.

I try to point out that the sensible treatment of a fever was once bloodletting, and anyone who thought the world was not flat was a fool. Some of the worst atrocities in human history have come out of a consensus that is justified by 'common sense' reasoning; to name just a few: human enslavement, genocide, and human experimentation without consent. One could even make an argument that it is common sense to oppress certain human rights in certain scenarios, but regardless of systematic justification of the simplicity in implementation or outcome, it's still immoral.

Consequently, if a candidate is justifying gun control with the 'common sense' argument, Voters should be cautious of this candidate because of just how short-sighted and ethically ambiguous this type of argument can be, and how 'common sense laws' often do NOT have the best interests of the public in mind.
Click to expand...
IMO, much of this is a result in the trend toward mandated truth. Logic, science, & reason are not respected or desired by the 'powers that be', but decree & mandate, for the purpose of control. The ruling elite prefer a pliable citizenry, not a defiant, activist one, that might drag out the guillotines for some offense against the people. They rely on mooching from the producers, & don't like it if they also have the means to change things.

In our current culture, 'education' is trumpeted as the cure-all. But that is just orwellian newspeak for propaganda. True education is an imparting of information, not conclusions. When the 'educators' control the information, & distribute it to promote a particular view, they have become indoctrinators, not educators.

Critical thinking & the scientific method are constantly being tossed aside for the convenience of mandates & decrees. We are being inundated with pseudo science, using some scientific sounding jargon to promote a political ideology. I see global warming, evolution, & the anti gunners as symptomatic of this. Common sense has nothing to do with it, & is a buzzword for the propagandists, when they go against reason & common sense. If they cannot defend or promote their position without reason, facts, & evidence, they fall back on the undefined assumption of 'common sense'.
 
The word tyranny comes up a lot in these defenses of 2A and we often forget that tyranny is a word that has no meaning for the anti-gun people. Anti-gun people live in cities and have learned to depend on systems provided by government and commerce to supply their daily needs. They haven't experienced real tyranny and so the word is specious to them.

A better approach might be something like:

The founders trusted the People to be empowered. Empowerment is many things: freedom of speech, religion, the press, voting, and due process. Empowerment includes the right to keep and bear arms. This system of democracy may have flaws, but it is a more perfect Union. There is no "fix" that wouldn't make the system worse, dis-empower the People, and threaten the very democracy we are trying to uphold.
 
I've found that there are very few "anti-gun" people who cannot be persuaded if you can sit down with them and have a frank and honest conversation about guns. The key point to make is that it's way too late in this country to ban guns. There are too many of them, they are too widely distributed, and guns are too much a part of the culture. Attempts to ban guns will only have the effect of further polarizing and dividing the country, and will turn law-abiding people into law-breakers, much as alcohol prohibition did in the 1920's. And point out that so-called "reasonable restrictions" are steps on the slippery slope to total prohibition. If they don't believe you, refer them to the experience in Britain and Australia.

One problem that we have in discussing guns is that they've become identified -- wrongly -- with the left-right political spectrum. In other words, if you're conservative, you're supposed to be in favor of guns, and if you're liberal, you're supposed to be against guns. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. There used to be quite a few liberal Democrats that were in favor of guns. (For example, Congressman John Dingell, of Michigan, -- a liberal by anyone's assessment -- was a member of the NRA Board of Directors.) Pro-gun people need to stop using terms like "liberal" and "commie" to refer to them. All this does is drive people into the anti-gun camp since they start to feel it's part of their "tribe." Polarization is a great enemy of gun rights.
 
I have to ask someone who is on about firearms control whether they really mean "common sense" or bigoted.

I constantly point out that about 80 million (that's 80,000,000) firearms owners have not been any part of harming anyone in the past, are not in the present and will not be in the future. Since many of these people have multiple firearms it is obvious that guns are not the problem. Firearms violence is a local culture problem--note where it is all happening.

And for those who are convinced that every firearms owner is a potential killer I usually drop in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K8tMr6rN_k. I infer that they don't trust people because they think others are like them and have no control.
 
My opinion is similar to some others. I don't think there's any great mystery or complicated thought process in the way this term is used. I've seen it used for things other than gun control.

A common technique in advertising is to convince people that everyone else wants Product X and therefore you should, too. It's an appeal to herd mentality and people are very susceptible to this "argument" because most people want to be like everyone else and don't value individuality.

Another way to look at it is that it is an appeal to authority; the authority of the crowd. Everyone already thinks this way, so it must be correct.

This is certainly why Mother's Looking for Action puff up their membership numbers to make believe that everyone is on board with this.
 
My favorite come-back to their argument is when I tell them that you cannot infringe on a fundamental Right and how would they like it if free speech had the myriad pitfalls and infringements that the Second has. The libs invariably bring up that you cannot 'yell fire' in a theater as an example of a First Amendment infringement that is reasonable.
I counter with: REALLY!? Do they provide muzzles when you enter a theater or sew your lips shut? How is it that you cannot yell 'fire'? You absolutely can yell whatever you want. The thing is, if there is no fire and you cause a panic you are RESPONSIBLE for the consequences of your actions, AFTER THE FACT!

There is no Prior Restraint on speech in a theater like there is on second amendment rights. The common sense approach on the second amendment would be to punish people who abuse that Right by infringing on other peoples fundamental Rights with a weapon. There should be NO Prior Restraint on the Second Amendment, period, until someone misuses it.
 
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