for the record (re: guns thread)

Certainly not the number of shootings. Definitely the extent to which news media saturation in our lives brings such events to the collective consciousness.Oh, sorry. Did I basically just torpedo your whole point? Maybe you should have done some research. For instance, in the 1960's, there were apparently at least 2 such shootings that you never heard about. The extent to which these incidents are repeatedly featured in the media. There's been little change in the number of buildings blown up by explosives. But did they have 6 24-hour news channels on TV in that time?

So she gets shot by a gun in her own house, and you think the problem was that there wasn't a gun in the house?If there had been a "gun on the nightstand" or whatever, wouldn't that have been the gun she got shot with?

What is your point, exactly? That gun control causes shootings? Oh. Well then I guess I'm confused. How can Kuresu be proving your point when you've just said you're not making that point?

No, I didn't. What you said was that you didn't hear about as many shoootings in the 60's as now, and I told you that was because they didn't have 6 different 24-hour news networks on cable TV in the 60's with literally hours to fill.I didn't say they were the same. But it's undeniably true that a fair bit of your perception of their being more of them is because school shootings recieve a lot more reportage in the current age of news saturation than in the 60's. You asked me to defend something I hadn't claimed? We call that a "strawman" around these parts.We would expect school shootings to rise simply as a function of their being more schools and more kids in schools, as well as more guns, incidentally. So I wouldn't claim that there aren't more now than back then. But again, the factor equally responsible for your perception is that such incidents are reported on a lot more. I can't, because you didn't say that explictly. But I don't understand, then, what the point of your making the connection was in the first place. If you didn't mean to suggest that gun control results in school shoootings, why did you portray a rise in school shootings as something that more gun control could be used to explain? Why bring up both subjects if you didn't intend to link them? I'm willing to grant that you were universally misunderstood, but in that case, what the hell were you trying to say?

Where do people get this crazy idea that "reducto ad absurdum" is a logical fallacy?There's actually nothing fallacious about it, and indeed, the "proof by contradiction" is one of the most widely-used syllogism forms in logic. Begging the question, though, is a logical fallacy.I'd tighten up your logic a bit, Jon, before I went off accusing others of fallacies that aren't. Just a suggestion.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

How many people have to be convicted of voluntary manslaughter with a firearm before you would admit that not everybody who fires a gun at another person intended to kill them?Plenty of people bring a gun into a situation and even fire it at someone, but lack (at least in a legal sense) the intent to murder.Throughout, Jon, your arguments display a tenuous connection to the reality of firearms and their use in crimes. Unless you maintain that guns are something that nobody actually wants to own, rates of ownership are indicative of ease of access.

On the other hand, if a lot of people own a few guns each, that would indicate that guns are fairly easy to get by people who don't really want them that badly. And that's certainly the case in the US.You're acting like it's a big mystery where the guns are, Jon, which again indicates that you're not restricting yourself to making arguments that are based on reality. Are you saying you don't know where you can buy a gun? You've never been to a sporting goods store? I know they have guns in sporting goods stores in Minnesota; I'm from there. Well, one single example of a person convicted of involuntary manslaughter with use of a firearm would be sufficient to prove you wrong, but according to BJS sources about 100,000 such crimes were prosecuted in 2001.

Mod - I don't understand what you think you're defending.I don't see it as contentious to suggest that participants in a discussion should strive for clarity above all else, and especially should refrain as much as possible from putting words in other people's mouths. And while it's sometimes necessary to "unpack" language that's really being used to conceal an unpleasant truth, there's a fuzzy line between that and simply presenting a strawman of your opponents position.These discussions about what you "can" and "can't" do proceed from no explicit rules; just our own subjective experiences about what is fair play and what is dirty pool. Nobody is talking about doing anything to Jon but simply saying "sorry, but I find your conduct dishonest." That you may not find it appropriate to say so isn't a reason to jump to a logic-chopping defense. And it's fairly disingenuous on your part to construe yourself as an impartial referee following an invisible rulebook.The question is whether or not Jon's remarks transgress the forum guidelines. If they do, substantively, then he should probably get sanctioned for it. But while simply being disingenuous, or using some conversational slight of hand to conceal a retreat from an over-reached position, may not be against the rules, neither is it above reproach or comment.This isn't the first time you've risen to someone's defense with these astoundingly obtuse interpretations, and in my experience they drive struggling threads even further off-topic. If Jon is being disingenuous then he deserves criticism for it, as part of the regular course of argumentation. If unclear writing has been mistaken for deceit, then Jon needs to learn to be clearer, and understanding how others interpret his remarks - without bending over backwards to be charitable, as you keep doing - will help him do that.But I don't see that these defenses of yours, continued in post after post, add anything to the discussion. They just drive us into the desert of "talking about what words mean", which is the most worthless conversation it's possible to have.

See, that's the logic-chopping that I'm talking about. If he's both misrepresented his opponents position and failed to defend his rebuttals with argumentation, that's two strikes against him - not two wrongs that make a right.He doesn't get a pass on arguing against a strawman just because he wasn't even able to argue against his own strawman. Incompetence is no defense. If he doesn't know how to make arguments for or against positions, he needs the help to learn. Defending him in his ignorance does him no favors. This post, then, should be more than sufficient. Again, his inability to demolish the strawman he erected is not evidence that it was never supposed to be a strawman in the first place. Call it "attempted strawman", if you will. And you don't see how rising to his defense against charges of misrepresenting the positions of others undermines your explanation?

It took me an hour of skimming through literally every report on the BJS under the "Guns and Crime" heading (in plain text format, because it takes too long to open a PDF) to find even a mention of it, and I didn't save the link.I gave the source; the source is the Bureau of Justice Statistics webpage, like I said. I don't have time to find it again. If you come across different or better numbers, I'd appreciate knowing what they are.

That can't be right. The number I was looking at was very clear.Maybe it was for a wider period than just one year? I assumed they were talking about 2001 because it was a report about 2001, I think, but I could be wrong about it. Since I can't find the information again, who knows.Like I said, though, the existence of even one person is sufficient to prove Jon wrong.

Sure I can. Incompetence is not a defense. Indeed. But one's own inability to attack even one's own weak misrepresentation is not evidence that one has not been disingenuous. It's evidence that one has been both disingenuous and incompetent. No, I have. You've just asserted with no evidence that you're right. Of course, it's not possible to win a debate about what words mean, and as you insist on having that debate, you've set yourself behind a bulwark of invincible ignorant. It's not possible to demonstrate to your satisfaction that you're wrong, because there's no objective rules on which to make a legitimate claim of victory.So your repeated protestations of never having been shown wrong are quite specious. Of course you won't admit to having been shown wrong. On what basis could we possibly force you to do so in a debate about what words mean? Because he doesn't know what he's doing, clearly. Then you need to relax, and realize that other people are going to be responding to his words and not your holistic interpretation. But trying to defend him according to what you interpreted him to say, rather than what he did say, is an ultimately fruitless and ridiculous position - which you seem abundantly eager to take. Why is that? You've explained no such thing. You've just made assertions about your interpretation. My question for you is - why are you so determined to stretch his words into the maximally charitable interpretation? Why not simply take the most obvious and reasonable interpretation, instead? Can you show me where you've done that in, say, the past 50 posts?

No, but I think the very large number of suicides, murders, and unintentional homicides does. I mean, c'mon. Do you think if Canada invades, it's going to be that hard to get your hands on a gun? They'll all be down at the Nat Guard armories, or else we can bring them up from Mexico. No, I did produce them - the Bureau of Justice Statistics webpage. Everybody's acting like I haven't cited a source, but I've mentioned it at least 3 times, now. I suspect you're just grasping about for some tenuous reason to dismiss my whole argument.

I think that's much less problematic now, so I don't see that as a major objection. If they're remote, then logistically, they have little to fear from military invasion. The point of invasion is to seize valuable targets, not worthless, remote ones.Really most of this "self-defense from Canada" argumentation is just paranoia. In the meantime, nearly 30,000 people a year are paying the price with their lives - involuntarily - to keep us defended from fictional invasions from Canada. Color me not impressed.I'm much more interested in the argument from personal self-defense. The Constitution can be changed at literally any time, it's a living document that should guide, but not dictate, our response to the contingencies of the present. Arguments about the original intent and purpose of the 2nd Amendment don't make much of an impression on me. It's undeniable that the proliferation of handguns has societal costs - no one seriously argues otherwise - but it's also undeniable that they have a utility in self-defense.Where's the inflection point, I wonder? Where the costs to everybody else justify putting you at risk by denying you a firearm? I don't expect Jon to have much of a cogent answer but it's an open question. For the next thread, I guess.