Debating an Anti-Gunner, Part III

[Trent]

bergmen -

Actually, I was thinking about that last night before bed (writing a book).

However.. there's a drawback to that. Ethically, in book form, I'm presenting an argument without a chance of feedback or contradiction. It doesn't sit well with my Buddhist ideals to "preach" a subject - any subject - without giving the opportunity for someone to disagree.

Forums I have no problem with; if someone doesn't like what I say, or points out a flaw in my logic or reasoning, we have a chance to hash it out. I can choose whether or not to incorporate their views, which may or may not alter my perception. In book form, this is a much more difficult process; once published, it's out there forever.

Here, it's "out there", yes, and can be found via various search engines easily. But, there is an open forum for discussion. So, if I'm wrong, or someone disagrees, I can be told such directly. Sure, I have stacked the cards in my favor to some degree by posting on a forum of like minded individuals..

But, someday.. maybe. This is a deep subject, crossing so many levels. It'd be a mighty big book if you touched on every "angle"!!! However, with volume and size, comes dilution.

Brevity is the soul of wit, after all.

I believe in preserving human life.

That brief enough?

This is the foundation for my belief on this matter. Everything else stems from that - self defense, hunting rights, right to keep and bear arms, deterrent against tyranny, so on, and so forth.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

bergmen -

Actually, I was thinking about that last night before bed (writing a book).

However.. there's a drawback to that. Ethically, in book form, I'm presenting an argument without a chance of feedback or contradiction. It doesn't sit well with my Buddhist ideals to "preach" a subject - any subject - without giving the opportunity for someone to disagree.

Forums I have no problem with; if someone doesn't like what I say, or points out a flaw in my logic or reasoning, we have a chance to hash it out. I can choose whether or not to incorporate their views, which may or may not alter my perception. In book form, this is a much more difficult process; once published, it's out there forever.

Here, it's "out there", yes, and can be found via various search engines easily. But, there is an open forum for discussion. So, if I'm wrong, or someone disagrees, I can be told such directly. Sure, I have stacked the cards in my favor to some degree by posting on a forum of like minded individuals..

But, someday.. maybe. This is a deep subject, crossing so many levels. It'd be a mighty big book if you touched on every "angle"!!! However, with volume and size, comes dilution.

Brevity is the soul of wit, after all.

I believe in preserving human life.

That brief enough?

This is the foundation for my belief on this matter. Everything else stems from that - self defense, hunting rights, right to keep and bear arms, deterrent against tyranny, so on, and so forth.

Oh, that's easy.

Just present both sides of the argument. People who write books on chess have to do this all the time.

You're educating, not preaching.

You are also free to clarify that your opinion is, in fact, an opinion.

Write the book.

 

[Trent]

^^ see, my perception being altered through feedback.

 

[Pudge]

Trent, this has been an enjoyable read, thanks. As far as turning the other cheek goes, how can one justify calling on the Police? You've got to just let the evildoer go, you can't farm out the violence. If a situation justifies calling the authorities to employ firearms, it justifies the individual's use of same. If the pastor's position calls for non-violence and turning the other cheek, then when seeing the rapist with his daughter, he ought to feel compelled to offer his wife. If instead he calls the cops, morally it is the same as using his own gun.

 

[Trent]

So, forcing another one to do the violence you don't have the guts to do...

is still violence?

I agree.

Pushing the problem off on someone else doesn't make the problem go away. Just makes it someone else's problem.

 

[David E]

Oh, that's easy.

Just present both sides of the argument.

Not so easy if he doesn't know or understand the "other side."

I recall an anti-gun sheriff, after he presented his horribly misinformed and slanted anti-gun view on a topic being asked why the NRA disagreed with him. He took about 1/2 a second to considerably reflect on his answer: "There's no reason at all for the NRA to be against this..."

Yet the network was credited for presenting both sides....

You're educating, not preaching.

No, he's presenting his opinion.

 

[Trent]

I have to admit, it'd be REAL hard for me to present an argument FOR gun control.

The only times in history it has "worked", have either led to horrible events, or has required a loss of a host of OTHER freedoms that I'm not prepared to lose.

I've lost 3 family members to firearms, including my great grandfather, my father, and my uncle who became a father figure to me ... and believe me, there have been nights I've TRIED to find a reason. There have been measurably long stretches of my life where I have not liked firearms.

There have been concise, very ugly events in my life - unsealing and cleaning up my aunt and uncle's house of blood, discarded rubber gloves, bandage backings after he shot himself - which for a period of time made it impossible for me to pick up a firearm. I still have vivid memories of when my father shot himself. (Try to imagine what it's like to have your first, earliest memory, as that of your father shooting himself).

No, I have BEEN there, through great personal tragedy, and I STILL believe that firearms - in the hands of good people - outweigh the risks. Owning firearms is a measured, calculated risk that you can minimize through responsibility.

All I can write for now, I'm dredging up thoughts I'd rather not deal with at the moment. Supposed to be a happy night, my younger son's 13th birthday..

 

[Pete D.]

Both sides

I have to admit, it'd be REAL hard for me to present an argument FOR gun control.

Trent:
There is an old saying in debate circles to the effect that if you cannot argue both sides of an issue equally well, it is because you only have half the facts.
You have spent some time "debating" people who are at best poorly prepared and in such an argument you have relied upon your own store of knowledge in order to counter poorly organized facts ....if there were any facts at all from those that you spoke with.
Pete

 

[oneounceload]

I have to admit, it'd be REAL hard for me to present an argument FOR gun control.

But, IMO, you need to - those of us against gun control, typically come at it from one of two viewpoints - strictly a self defense scenario or from the militia against tyranny aspect

Pro control folks have various slants and they do not all agree with each other. You have politicos who fear for themselves, urban folks who fear the gangs, soccer moms and their fear of crime in the suburbs, those who think every gun fan is a "gun nut" looking to blow up the country, and on and on. Each requires a different approach, but your goal is the same - to calmly lead them down the path of their own misinformation that they deduce the fallacy and will at least reconsider their initial position

 

[barnbwt]

Pushing the problem off on someone else doesn't make the problem go away. Just makes it someone else's problem.

True, but that is what officers of the law are paid for; to take care of other people's problems (ideally) when they cannot resolve them in the interest of justice on their own.

"To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, so that the strong should not harm the weak" --Preamble to Code of Hammurabi

Please permit me a brief tanget; weak individuals are, by definition, unable to resolve slights against them in their favor. My (Judeo-Christian) ideals indicate that a person should not be vulnerable to the actions of another simply because of their station in life. I am admittedly ignorant of the Buddhist philosophy on this matter, but If I recall correctly, doesn't Buddhism take a slightly more complicated approach to this question?

Back on topic:

As you stated earlier, the "self defense" angle is but one facet that forms a person's opposition to firearms and their distribution. That is what makes the debate so difficult; you must not argue once single point at a time, but a whole world view of a firearm's place in society at once.

It seems like you'd have to similtaneously debate:
-Inherent rights to self-defense
-Role of self-defense
-Role of guns in self-defense
-Limits of self-defense
as well as
-The same four issues with hunting/sporting in place of self-defense
-The relation between the same four issues and political freedom

The gun debate is really not even a debate about guns (like we've always said, and the opposing side has always denied), but the implications of guns. Of the potential for one human to have so much more power than another. Since implications cascade (as seen in my bullet list), you end up with a fractal argument of interminable length if you try to actually address the topic based on issues. That's why I believe a "top down" rhetorical argument is most effective; it may sway or educate someone who hasn't thought about the question much, provoking them to form their own opinion through mine.

Someone already exposed to the multitude of issues from which they have based their opposing opinions and emotions cannot be convinced, without taking a "personal touch" to disarm their fears individually (through experience shooting ). Sadly, this process is much too slow and variable for a fast cultural change in this country, but we can get there if we keep at it.

TCB

 

[Pete D.]

Hmmm

The gun debate is really not even a debate about guns (like we've always said, and the opposing side has always denied), but the implications of guns. Of the potential for one human to have so much more power than another. Since implications cascade (as seen in my bullet list), you end up with a fractal argument of interminable length if you try to actually address the topic based on issues. That's why I believe a "top down" rhetorical argument is most effective; it may sway or educate someone who hasn't thought about the question much, provoking them to form their own opinion through mine.

An interesting idea for sure, "the implications of guns" and about power.
I have for many years (as I acquired more and more firearms) thought that owning and using guns is at its most basic about power, about wielding power and controlling power. Even a .22 Rimfire is quite powerful and learning to control such power is extraordinarily satisfying. Taking a powerful rifle or pistol and making it perform accurately, controlling that power, is even more so.
Understanding that, we must also deal with the truth of Lord Acton's observation that "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Though.....I don't feel corrupted.
Pete

 

[Trent]

Pete; barnbwt;

NOW we get to the crux of the matter! Firearms fit the absolute power of life and death in to your very hand. But, as soon as metal and wood (or plastic, polymer) capable of taking life meet hand, intent becomes the predominant - arguably, the ONLY - issue.

Which is why there is such a push now, for "moderation" based on some psychological or mental litmus test.

Follow me through the chain here;

Firearms = lethal force = power

This is the basis of the anti-gun movement.

* People fear death.

* People have increased fear of dying of unnatural causes, over natural causes ("to die before one's time").

* People have increased fear of being part of a MASS death incident (for instance; I have long fought an irrational fear of flying in commercial mass-transit context, but I love flying in chartered aircraft; I also fight a fear of subways, trains, and buses; irrational, yes, but simultaneously, part of my nature, and "wiring".)

Since firearms are often used in mass murder incidents, and receive massive media exposure, this plays upon the fears of people like me, so I can relate. This is despite it being such a very low cause of death, % wise, as a tiny fraction of homicides overall, which itself is a tiny fraction of all causes of death, overall.

So their arguments become as barbed as ours, but - oddly enough - both arguments stem from the same exact root cause.

Read that again. Or read it a different way:

The fundamental driving factor of the gun control movement is the same fundamental driving factor of the gun rights movement.

Banning firearms outright has not worked, due to our culture, bill of rights, and strong resistance in society. Keep in mind, no matter WHAT they say to the contrary, removing guns from society is the overall goal of gun control activists. Nothing short will work - for them to feel safe, you have to entirely remove this "threat vector" from the public.

Why do I say that? Because they fear themselves or their family dying at the hands of a gun. Period. ANY gun. This is the fundamental basis, and holds true if they are a tyrannical politician trying to commit genocide, or a soccer mom. Handgun, rifle, shotgun, doesn't matter. These people, at the very core, DO NOT WANT TO DIE VIOLENTLY AT THE HANDS OF ANOTHER.

Just the thought of someone owning a gun makes them queasy, let alone carrying a gun, because that means A) that person can shoot and kill them on a whim, and B) that some people around them may - at any time - have weapons, and therefore, carry the power to kill them wherever they feel like it. (Which, on a tangent, also leads to "gun free zones" - which amount to nothing more than a "feel good thought shield" to calm troubled minds, yet has not shown a single effect on quelling school shootings, shootings in public places, and so on; in reality, it's a fact that "gun free zones" actually make shootings WORSE when they do happen.)

Since they cannot effectively remove all of them from society, and face stiff resistance to this in our particular country, the next step in the logic trail follows:

If they can't control the TOOL [method], they want to control the USER.

Here we enter the wide variety of gun control legislation.

The latest fad? Mind-state. It's a nasty one because it's completely ambiguous. It also won't work; as firearms can still be stolen or a mindset of a stable person can change with time.

Examples:
** Mid-life onset of schizophrenia;
** severe depression;
** instant shift in mindset (jealous rage, vengeance of a battered/killed loved one, etc)

(Those represent a few of a wide variety of cases where a normal person with healthy outlook and views, would at some unknown point in the future become a NON normal person with a skewed world view)

Am I afraid of someone "going postal"?

You bet your ass I am. Because I'm not allowed to protect myself outside of my home, in the state I live in.

Here-in lies the Catch-22, of the rather brilliant argument they are putting forth.

If I'm afraid of leaving my house, for fear of being shot, then I am suffering from a mental imbalance, because my fear is unfounded, and truly insignificant, statistically speaking. Thus, I would fail their "sound mind" criteria as I am clinically paranoid. Yet, they are NOT mentally imbalanced or clinically paranoid for fearing guns enough to pass such legislation, even thought it is effectively the same argument.

You ever hear of the "pot calling the kettle black"?

That is precisely what we are facing. Paranoia and delusion behind the written law.

And that, my friends, troubles me on a very deep, and fundamental level. For when we draft legislature and govern ourselves off of paranoia and fear of the common man, what does that say about our society?

What have we learned in the post 9-11 society, if not to fear our fellow man, to trust no one, to assume guilt until proven innocent?

If you think we have "won" the battle with the last supreme court ruling; if you think we can rest on our laurels and proclaim ourselves the true inheritors of the 2nd amendment, if you think this fight is over and that the pendulum will swing forever in our favor, with concealed carry and right to keep and bear arms forever...

Think again.

OUR society entered a downward spiral where we fear everything, a little over a decade ago. This has resulted in a new generation which is willing to trade freedom for security. Your right to keep and bear arms has NEVER been in as much danger as it is today - the new generation isn't even allowed to TALK about firearms for the first 13 years of their education. The media is almost universally anti-gun. The internet is a feeding frenzy of belief exchange, and fear spreads faster and stronger than hope.



Wear seat belts. Dead citizens do not pay taxes.

Think properly. Mentally unstable citizens can't hold a job down, and don't pay taxes.

Don't smoke. Unhealthy citizens die early, and can't pay taxes.

Stand orderly in line, and don't complain about the rubber gloves. Travel is a privilege, not a right. Can't have an entire plane of well-off tax payers go down!

And so on.. and so on..

Gun control is a serious symptom of a much worse problem; paranoia on a social level, spanning our entire civilization.

No, don't rest, not for one second.

Spread a message of hope.

 

[Trent]

By the way, the above DOES deserve a serious edit - The way it is written will stretch the patience of a moderator or two, I'm sure.

HOWEVER, this was a free-form thought exercise, first draft, as it were, of my thoughts going directly to words..

Rather than edit it out, rather than "tone it down", I would rather receive critique and feedback on how to further refine this line of argument.

Thanks.

 

[Trent]

Also, FYI, the basic principal I'm searching for here, the "truth" as it were, follows:

Given that the gun control and pro-gun arguments are sourced from the same concept (control over life and death)...

What is the deciding factor in which branch is chosen by an individual?

To me, I view the answer as personal responsibility.

For one side wants to offload personal responsibility on to the body politic, police force, etc.

The other side wants to retain (or in our case, in Illinois, to GAIN) personal responsibility.

Am I correct in these assumptions? That the "trigger" for a person to go pro- or anti-gun is the personal responsibility aspect?

 

[ArfinGreebly]

So their arguments become as barbed as ours, but - oddly enough - both arguments stem from the same exact root cause.

Read that again. Or read it a different way:

The fundamental driving factor of the gun control movement is the same fundamental driving factor of the gun rights movement.

While that's close, it makes an assumption that's actually not quite true.

You see, without attempting to over-simplify the components of the emotional element in the vectors that make up survival, security, control, and their relationship to responsibility, it is worth mentioning that there is a sort of "tuned resonance level" (or "tone" or "tenor" if you prefer) that can be observed in people, and this "tone" is expressed through actual conduct and interaction with others. Yes, that's a really messy sentence. Because I was really trying to avoid saying something like "people vibrate at different frequencies, and this affects how they act, how they see life, and how they treat other people" because, well, it doesn't fit nicely with any conventional view.

Where that takes you, however, is that if you acknowledge that an emotion has an essential "wavelength," you can stack them on a scale, where their relationship expresses "tends to improve personal survival" as opposed to "tends to hinder personal survival."

(And let's not attempt to flesh that out any further, because that's not even remotely on-topic.)

With a little boiling down, you get to this: "control" is a different concept at a higher "wavelength" than it is at a lower "wavelength."

At a higher wavelength, "control" is skill, art, building, creating, and so on.

At a lower wavelength, "control" is preventing, stopping, punishing, manipulating, and so on.

So, while you're essentially correct in that "control" as a root cause drives both the gun rights and gun control movements, the emotional wavelengths behind the two movements tend to reflect rather different positions in this spectrum of emotions.

Gun control: must prevent harm to myself resulting from the backlash that is the predictable consequence of attempting to control the lives of others.

Gun rights: must prevent harm to myself resulting from the predictable predation of people who either want to prevent my creative efforts or steal the prosperity that results from my creative efforts.

Or, said differently,

Gun rights: I want to do creative stuff and protect myself from predation.

Gun control: I need to confiscate the creation of others and need to protect myself from their resistance.


Now, I've really, really simplified this, because emotional wavelengths have more nuances than what I've chosen for examples, but hopefully you can see where this goes.

Fear, for example isn't terribly inclined toward either creative action or the enslavement of others, and doesn't "move the needle" much either way, but is inclined to "prevent harm to self" from poorly defined threats, while on the other hand enthusiasm tends toward the much more creative side, and is more interested in what can be achieved than in worrying about preventing harm to self, even though the requirement may be acknowledged.

As you "turn the dial" toward one end or the other of the spectrum, the "manifestations" of this "survival" thing can be seen to span a broad range.

So, while the "motivation" is the "same" (survival) the underlying vectors are recognizably different.

Summary:

Gun rights: liberty, freedom, creativity, hopefulness.

Gun control: manipulation, restriction, prevention, apprehensiveness.

Tune your emotional radio accordingly.

 

[Skribs]

Random thought: it's good that these debates can happen online nowadays, where when someone makes a post, you can go find sources and counter. Verbal debates (not official debates, but an anti going "OMG guns are bad") usually involve someone spouting off sources that they've found, and me unable to refute them with sources of my own (because I had not thought to refute that specific source).

 

[BADUNAME37]

I have given up arguing with the anti-gun crowd. If they somehow, someday come around, fine, if not, it is certainly NOT my duty to turn them into something they aren't. I also shew Jehovah's Witnesses away from my door. I have better things to do than argue religion with them.

 

[Pete D.]

Fellas....fellas.....ya gotta edit that stuff. My head is woolly from trying to read through.

When I taught school, I liked nice, precise, short, to the point essays. No mind dump. My most common reaction to over written papers was the the note "dtuw" - death to unnecessary words. If you can't say it in a paragraph or two, you need to edit.

I do like the idea that, in a very basic way, the two sides in the gun debate are coming from a similar place and use similar ideas....maybe even the same ideas broadcast at different wavelengths (to stay with the metaphor).

Also....I would rewrite the gun/power derivative as Gun = power = lethal force; lethal force, though, is only one aspect of the power. Control is another.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Fellas....fellas.....ya gotta edit that stuff. My head is woolly from trying to read through.

When I taught school, I liked nice, precise, short, to the point essays. No mind dump. My most common reaction to over written papers was the the note "dtuw" - death to unnecessary words. If you can't say it in a paragraph or two, you need to edit.

I do like the idea that, in a very basic way, the two sides in the gun debate are coming from a similar place and use similar ideas....maybe even the same ideas broadcast at different wavelengths (to stay with the metaphor).

Also....I would rewrite the gun/power derivative as Gun = power = lethal force; lethal force, though, is only one aspect of the power. Control is another.

Yeah.

Sorry about that.

Trouble is, when you try to explain something using unfamiliar terminology, you are obliged to spend some column inches explaining the framework.

Kinda can't be helped. We don't maintain a glossary of "obscure metaphorical terms" for discussing meta issues like thinking about thinking.

In the end, though, if you're going to wade into the "why do gun grabbers think like they do?" swamp, ultimately you're going to be thinking about thinking.

But, hey, look on the bright side: I did that without invoking religion or politics.

 

[Trent]

Mind dumps are useful if you're trying to REFINE an argument, which is what this is about.

The whole idea is to distill it in to a simple form so it can be presented easily. That might take several iterations.

 

[barnbwt]

So, now guns have a purpose and fill a role, providing a solution to an ugly problem that bare hands or a baseball bat can't solve.

Reading back, I saw this line, and thought it funny that most people find it preferable for a bad guy to be beaten to death with a blunt instrument than to be shot down. Despite how brutal, horrific, and inhuman the act is, for someone unaccustomed to the effects of firearms, physical (manual) violence is familiar, comprehensible, and therefore, less threatening. Nevermind the fact that both routes led to the death or extreme injury of the same person. This weird mental/emotional sensitivity is also why large knives are said to be more effective in crowd control than loaded machine guns.

"Artillery lends dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl"-Fredrick the Great

We don't maintain a glossary of "obscure metaphorical terms" for discussing meta issues like thinking about thinking.

I think you did pretty well distilling the viewpoints of gun issues into only two camps, I was only able to get it down to three sets of four issues . I like the wavelength/color/bias/whatever metaphor, I've seen it applied in Government courses describing the transfer of authority from individuals to states to federal level throughout American history (three colors, in that example).

It is useful for building a frame of reference to build arguments around, but limiting in that it assumes (rightly or wrongly) that there are a set number of points at end of the spectrum. I typically see it used to drive compromise; because the arguments are spectrum-based, it is intuitive to try to meet at the middle. But that may or may not be the optimum position, depending on the issue.

It is definitely a good place to start from in forming an arguement, though. It would make it a bit easier to try to understand the motives of the opposing view, too, if you can understand the top-level guiding principles driving their reaction to specific arguments. Done well enough, you'd be able to predict the reaction to your points as you present them, and use it to strengthen your argument.

TCB

 

[Pete D.]

Yah

The whole idea is to distill it in to a simple form so it can be presented easily. That might take several iterations.

Agreed. I was thinking that the iterations would be taken care of before you sat at the keyboard and that the simple, easy presentation would be here.
Personally, I don't need to see your thought process; I am interested in the results. Thought like a rapier, not like a flood.

Arfin:This summary:

Gun rights: liberty, freedom, creativity, hopefulness.

Gun control: manipulation, restriction, prevention, apprehensiveness.

This summary, as worded, reflects an innate prejudice on your part. All of the words on the Gun Rights line are positive and uplifting in nature. The words associated with Gun Control are generally less so, more negative. That is not the way to win an argument. I submit to you that a person who favors gun control very probably believes that it is a positive idea, a good thing, and would take exception to the negative aspects of your description. So....in the spirit of learning to understand the mindset of your opponent, how would you cast those ideas in more positive terms? For instance, a person who fears firearms may feel restricted because of the presence of guns and may feel that controlling them or prohibiting them would be a liberating, freeing experience.....it really does come down to the same terms for both.

It is definitely a good place to start from in forming an arguement, though. It would make it a bit easier to try to understand the motives of the opposing view, too, if you can understand the top-level guiding principles driving their reaction to specific arguments. Done well enough, you'd be able to predict the reaction to your points as you present them, and use it to strengthen your argument.

Understand the motives of the opposing view. Yes.
Be able to predict the reaction to your points as you present them. Yes.
Never ask a question that you don't know the answer to. Know all the answers to questions that will be asked....better yet....know all the questions that can be asked.

that most people find it preferable for a bad guy to be beaten to death.......

Be careful. An idea that sounds like a fact but isn't. How do you know that statement is true? Have you met "most people"? Weakens your argument to include sloppy expressions like that. The statement itself is a hasty generalization and thus fallacious.

 

[Neverwinter]

Fear, for example isn't terribly inclined toward either creative action or the enslavement of others, and doesn't "move the needle" much either way, but is inclined to "prevent harm to self" from poorly defined threats, while on the other hand enthusiasm tends toward the much more creative side, and is more interested in what can be achieved than in worrying about preventing harm to self, even though the requirement may be acknowledged.

Suppose the fear of soul stealing via photographs.

On the higher wavelengths, control is fashioning a shiny reflective mask by which to avoid having your soul stolen.

On the lower wavelengths, control is prevention of people from using photographic equipment.

Got it.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Suppose the fear of soul stealing via photographs.

On the higher wavelengths, control is fashioning a shiny reflective mask by which to avoid having your soul stolen.

On the lower wavelengths, control is prevention of people from using photographic equipment.

Got it.

Ah!

Ridicule!

Because if I can make fun of it, I don't have to understand it.

 

[oneounceload]

The Soviets were very successful during the Cold War in negotiating with the US because we would broadcast our parameters on the nightly news and give our strategy away while they never did. They gave away nothing while we lost our butts - because they know their side AND ours..........learn your enemies arguments and you can defeat them