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The author never gets around to actually refuting any of these "myths."
You will find that I deleted long passages that had nothing to do with the supposed myths. That amounted to most of the author's article, leaving precious little material having something to do with the article's stated purpose.
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The author never gets around to actually refuting any of these "myths."
You will find that I deleted long passages that had nothing to do with the supposed myths. That amounted to most of the author's article, leaving precious little material having something to do with the article's stated purpose.
***
As a longtime lawyer for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Dennis Henigan frequently found himself debating advocates on the other side of the issue. Over the years, he came to believe their arguments were bolstered not by logic but by a powerful mythology. This summer, he wrote a book in the hopes of exposing it, which is excerpted below.
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Shortly after I began my tenure as a lawyer and advocate for the Brady gun control group, I started to notice a peculiar repetitiveness in my opponents’ arguments. Whether it was on radio or TV talk shows, panel discussions, or speeches with audience Q&A, there was a striking similarity in the substance of the arguments, and even the language, used by my opponents. Over and over again, I would hear, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” I would hear, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” I would hear, “An armed society is a polite society.” I had seen these sayings on bumper stickers for years, but I discovered that my opponents actually argued in these terms. Even when these exact phrases weren’t used, the thoughts they express were conveyed in other words. In more scholarly settings, critics of gun regulation would dress up their arguments in the arcane language of academia and in mountains of statistics, but their basic claims could, to a remarkable degree, be boiled down to the same themes I had heard on countless talk shows. (A repetitive use of an argument does not invalidate it.)
For gun control advocates, the sad fact is that the bumper-sticker arguments of the National Rifle Association and its allies have an impact on the gun debate that needs to be acknowledged. (It's interesting that the author objects to bumper sticker arguments when it is the Left that is famous for such things. Like "keep abortion safe and legal," "well-behaved women seldom make history," "healthcare not warfare," "celebrate diversity," etc.. etc..)
(...)
This continuing intensity gap may well be related to the resonance of at least some of the NRA’s oft-used bumper-sticker arguments. Let’s take, for example, the declaration “Guns don’t kill people, People kill people.” The suggestion that the violence that has long plagued our society is rooted in the evil that lurks in our souls is effectively used to marginalize, as relatively insignificant, issues related to the specific instrumentalities of violence. The slogan has been remarkably effective in diverting attention from the issue of gun regulation to the endless, and often fruitless, search for more “fundamental” causes of criminal violence. (Notice here that the author dances around the point. He only manages mock the idea of personal the idea moral darkness while acknowledging that guns are an "instrumentality." This of course is the point of the "myth.")
***
Shortly after I began my tenure as a lawyer and advocate for the Brady gun control group, I started to notice a peculiar repetitiveness in my opponents’ arguments. Whether it was on radio or TV talk shows, panel discussions, or speeches with audience Q&A, there was a striking similarity in the substance of the arguments, and even the language, used by my opponents. Over and over again, I would hear, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” I would hear, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” I would hear, “An armed society is a polite society.” I had seen these sayings on bumper stickers for years, but I discovered that my opponents actually argued in these terms. Even when these exact phrases weren’t used, the thoughts they express were conveyed in other words. In more scholarly settings, critics of gun regulation would dress up their arguments in the arcane language of academia and in mountains of statistics, but their basic claims could, to a remarkable degree, be boiled down to the same themes I had heard on countless talk shows. (A repetitive use of an argument does not invalidate it.)
For gun control advocates, the sad fact is that the bumper-sticker arguments of the National Rifle Association and its allies have an impact on the gun debate that needs to be acknowledged. (It's interesting that the author objects to bumper sticker arguments when it is the Left that is famous for such things. Like "keep abortion safe and legal," "well-behaved women seldom make history," "healthcare not warfare," "celebrate diversity," etc.. etc..)
(...)
This continuing intensity gap may well be related to the resonance of at least some of the NRA’s oft-used bumper-sticker arguments. Let’s take, for example, the declaration “Guns don’t kill people, People kill people.” The suggestion that the violence that has long plagued our society is rooted in the evil that lurks in our souls is effectively used to marginalize, as relatively insignificant, issues related to the specific instrumentalities of violence. The slogan has been remarkably effective in diverting attention from the issue of gun regulation to the endless, and often fruitless, search for more “fundamental” causes of criminal violence. (Notice here that the author dances around the point. He only manages mock the idea of personal the idea moral darkness while acknowledging that guns are an "instrumentality." This of course is the point of the "myth.")
(...)
A CNN poll in 2015 found that 58 percent thought it unlikely that expanded background checks would keep guns out of the hands of convicted criminals. In other words, at some basic level, the public is convinced that “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” This belief cannot help but diminish the intensity of public support for further gun restrictions and the likelihood that such support will be translated into activism and voting behavior. It is difficult to motivate people to work and vote for gun control if they are not convinced it will make a difference. The gun advocates’ bumper-sticker messages, when examined critically, reveal themselves as mythology compounded by convoluted reasoning. Yet they continue to exert an outsized influence on public attitudes toward guns and gun control. Unless these messages are challenged and discredited, our national paralysis in addressing gun violence is likely to persist. (Well sir, perhaps you could actually "examine it critically." Explain to us the "convoluted reasoning." Perhaps, sir, you could actually "challenge and discredit" the idea.)
(...)
Those who believe that exposing the gun lobby’s bumper-sticker fallacies would have no effect on the politics of gun control should consider this passage from the Carville-Begala book on the issue of whether the Democrats should push to require background checks on gun sales at gun shows:
Sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ), the bill would require that people who buy guns at gun shows pass the same background check required for purchases made in stores. Okay. Sounds reasonable. But what is the political cost-benefit analysis? A study by the Clinton Justice Department showed that just 1.7 percent of criminals who used guns in the commission of a crime obtained their gun from a gun show. By extending the Brady Bill to catch such a small percentage of transactions, Democrats risk inflaming and alienating millions of voters who might otherwise be open to voting Democratic. But once guns are in the mix, once someone believes his gun rights are threatened, he shuts down.
(...)
It turns out that, on the issue of gun shows, the Carville-Begala analysis is highly misleading. They cite a Justice Department survey of federal firearms offenders showing that only 1.7 percent of the offenders said they got their guns at gun shows. This ignores the well-established fact that many gun criminals buy their guns from gun traffickers who, in turn, bought their inventory at gun shows. Many criminals simply don’t know that their guns originated at gun shows. Carville and Begala overlook the joint Justice-ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) study of federal trafficking investigations showing “a disturbing picture of gun shows as a venue for criminal activity and a source of firearms used in crimes.” (It seems that the author is suggesting that if a gun ever was sold at a gun show and then gets re-sold, it's a problem with not regulating gun shows. However, the author is himself promulgating a bumper-sticker myth of his own. There is no gun show loophole.)
(...)
In December of 2003, former President Clinton, speaking at the Brady Bill’s 10-year anniversary celebration in Washington, DC, cogently addressed the way the gun debate is conducted in this country and how it impacts our nation’s ability to make greater progress in preventing injury and death from gunfire. He said he was always struck by the disconnect between the gun lobby’s arguments and what is happening in real life. “This is all about getting people to stop thinking,” he said, “ignoring the human consequences of a practical problem.” He went on: “But the consequences here are quite severe, because the landscape of our recent history is littered with the bodies of people that couldn’t be protected, under sensible gun laws that wouldn’t have had a lick of impact on the hunters and sportsmen of this country.” (What about the bodies that litter the landscape due to knifings, or beatings with a baseball bat? More people die each year from those "instrumentalities.)
I was in the audience that day and I was struck with his observation that “this is all about getting people to stop thinking.” This is, in fact, the impact of the pro-gun slogans. They do not stimulate thoughtful, rational discussion of the “human consequences of a practical problem.” They end thoughtful, rational discussion and replace it with clever catchphrases in service to an immovable ideology. I think President Clinton was getting at the disturbing truth about the gun debate in America. Our nation does a bad job of thinking about guns. Until we get the reasoning right, we will do little to address the “human consequences” of gun violence. It is no exaggeration to say that our nation’s gun policy is paralyzed by a series of fallacies — arguments that appear sound on first hearing, but crumble when subject to careful thought and analysis. (Will the author ever get around to this "careful thought and analysis?)
Although exposing these fallacies is necessarily an exercise in reason, it should not be coldly intellectual. It is my hope that the task will awaken the same emotions in the reader that it did in me: Sadness. Then anger. When President Obama unveiled a series of executive actions on guns three years after the Newtown massacre, he reminded the nation that it was a mass killing of first graders. “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad,” said the president, wiping away tears. It should, in fact, make all of us angry. It should lead us to realize that too many of our fellow citizens have perished or been severely injured because the pro-gun fallacies have held sway for far too long. They have excused inaction and justified misguided policies. Because gun violence is, literally, a life-or-death issue, the NRA’s tortured mythology has cost innocent lives. Too many have died for us to tolerate it any longer.
(Persuaded by the author's rational, analytical arguments? Yeah, me neither.)
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