Guns kill people. That is pretty much the primary use of a gun. It isn't the only use, but all the other uses are related to that or very minor. You can use a gun to threaten to kill people, but the threat only works because of its primary purpose. You could theoretically use a gun to only wound people, but that isn't very likely and isn't very much better. Some guns you can use for hunting (although the pictures gun appears to be a pistol, which probably wouldn't be). You can use a gun as defense against wildlife. You can use it for target shooting. You can use it as a movie prop. But the primary use of a gun is violence against people.
And then we get into a Aristotelian argument against proximate and efficient cause. Since shooting someone requires that the earth formed in the first place, we can say that the formation of the earth is a cause of someone getting shot. It is true, but not a relevant truth. In the same way, we can claim that a gun is not what "kills people", that it is the killed person's supposed acts of aggression, and that the gun is just a minor "cause".
But the examples illustrated don't bear that out. You can use a fork without getting fat. You can use a pencil and never misspell a word. The last example is even more confusing, and would probably better be phrased "Alcohol causes drunk driving". You can certainly drive a car without driving drunk. All of those examples are of overuse or misuse of the items. But with a gun, killing people is its intended use.
Which isn't to say that there isn't a good moral or legal justification for killing people in self-defense. But the primary use of a gun is killing, wounding, or causing threats to people. Let's be honest about that.
I find the intellectual dishonesty you get from gun rights advocates to be so deeply entrenched that there's no hope of ever getting an enlightened discussion from one. Also, the day I meet a gun owner who's willing to take any responsibility for their weapon outside the time that it's physically in their possession I'll reconsider my thoughts on whether our society is mature enough to deserve the great responsibility of gun ownership.
ReplyDeleteWell, the point of this blog is not so much to take a position on issues, as to look critically at how positions are presented.
DeleteBut thank you for reading and commenting!
You should take it a step further and discuss some of the stimulating points that are being totally ignored on the subjects you examine. On this issue I think there's a really interesting discussion to be had on what the intention of the second amendment was. Or if it's statistically a winning or losing bet to be a gun owner. It would be cool if you could talk about that shit without automatically getting a deluge of NRA boilerplate cut and pasted directly from their site.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I like the concept of this blog because people, myself more than most, get so wrapped up in winning the argument that they stop thinking about things. How do you deal with someone who tells you a gun is the same as a fork? Is it possible to get that person reengaged in the discussion or is it a sign that they are beyond reason? I think that would be a really interesting thing for you to address in future posts. I would like it both because it would be helpful to have an ideas on how to effectively communicate with others and how to check myself when *I'm* being unreasonable.
Anyway... just some thoughts. Interesting blog, thanks for taking the time.