So I just read this article: http://www.lethallogicthebook.com/?page_id=16

and over the last hour I wrote my first thoughts about it, posted below (mods feel free to move this thread if need be, I debated putting this in the lounge or the politics section):


In an article entitled "Myth-busting Facts", apparently straight out of the upcoming book Lethal Logic, Denis Henigan tears apart a few key points of "the gun lobby", or at least he wants us to think he does.

Before I get to those points though, I need to make one of my own. That point is made clear through the answer to a simple question; "who is the gun lobby?" We might be partially correct by saying that the gun lobby is the National Rifle Association, but then who is the NRA? The point I am making is that "the gun lobby", including the NRA, would be nothing without its membership base and that base is made up of regular citizens. Let's keep this in mind, because it is easy to demonize "the gun lobby", yet that demonization looks awfully childish when you realize it is nothing less than an attack on our grandfathers and grandmothers, brothers and sisters, and friends and other family members. Denis Henigan may think it is fitting to try and cast the entire "gun lobby" under one roof, but I think he knows quite well that doing so is an illogical thing to do.

Now let us get to those points he is attacking, or "myths" if you will. They are: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people.", "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns", and "An armed society is a polite society". There is one thing that I noticed right away about all these sayings, and that is that they all rely on what I call "bumper sticker logic". This means three things, 1) they are all small enough to fit on a bumper sticker and still be readable, 2) they all hint at more detailed and complicated arguments and issues, and 3) they are all easy to dismiss if you ignore point number two. This is the critical error Denis Henigan's article makes, it ignores the more complicated nature of the points all three sayings make in order to make them all seem completely illogical, in order to make them "myths" if you prefer to put it that way.

Let me explain exactly what I mean; Denis Henigan purports to refute the saying that, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." by pointing out the fact that assaults with guns, and suicide attempts with guns, are more successful at causing death than assaults and suicides attempted in other ways. In fact, pointing out this information is both stating the obvious and not even a refutation of the basic saying itself, let alone the more complicated message behind that saying. Yes people attack other people, and yes people attempt suicide, but if we only focus on the means we completely forget to focus on the reasons behind the actions.

Let's say I could press a magic button and take away all the access to firearms by those committing assaults and attempting suicide, but nothing happens to address the reasons why those assaults are happening and why those suicides are being attempted. Sure I could go stand on the corner and preach that my magic button was a success because there are no gun crimes or gun suicides anymore, but I would have to ignore the fact that I would have done nothing to prevent suicide attempts or assaults by other means. This is what Denis Henigan seems to miss; that those like me who argue for attacking the problems of crime and suicide without banning or restricting firearms further do so because we get the fact that this is a human problem, and attacking the ownership of firearms doesn't solve it. People commit assaults, people attempt suicide, and if we want to crack down on crime and reduce suicide attempts we need to address the people, not just the means they use. The most lethal suicide method available, that enables the most suicides of all, is ignorance of the human problem. It is far from prudent for Denis Henigan to suggest that more restrictive gun laws will solve both the issues of urban gun homicide and rural gun suicide.

I also think it is well known that gun violence is an issue in rural areas and urban areas; I don't know what national survey Denis Henigan conducted of "most people" who think otherwise. However, perhaps one of the reasons some do believe it is an urban issue, is that it is often urban politicians who try to make it seem that way. I reside in Pennsylvania, and most of the gun control proponents in the Pennsylvania General Assembly hail from Philadelphia. I've lost count of how many times I've heard a Philadelphian politician argue that the State should let it make its own gun laws because of the urban gun violence issue .

Let's move on though; Denis Henigan goes on to support restrictions on all types of weapons by bringing up the restrictions on machine guns, and the overall lack of their criminal use. It is patently obvious he makes this point to try and assert the effectiveness of a "federal licensing and registration system". The problem is, he doesn't prove the effectiveness of that system, nor does he disprove anything about the saying that "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns". Under this strict system that Denis Henigan is supporting only those capable of affording the insane premium on machine guns, caused directly by the registration system, can get one; if they live in a State that doesn't have an outright ban in place. This is a fact that shouldn't be surprising because as history reveals by simply looking at the firearms laws of New York, New Jersey, California, Chicago, and the District of Columbia, one of the easiest ways to ban a form of weaponry for most of the law abiding population is to just make it time consuming and expensive to get; that way the rights of the people become mere privileges of the rich and well connected.

Of course let us address the criminal element, because Denis Henigan asserts that machine guns have an "obvious appeal to criminals" and by default is asserting that they've turned to other weapons because the registration system makes them now unappealing. To address that point all I have to do is ask a simple question; what was the weapon of choice among firearms for the criminal element prior to when the registration system Denis Henigan supports began? I'll give you a hint, the answer isn't machine guns.

Let us move on once more though, as Denis Henigan attacks the phrase that "an armed society is a polite society". On the surface he sounds convincing doesn't he? What with his supposed fact that "guns are used in crime 4-6 times more frequently than they are used in self-defense", and by presenting information about Florida's high violent crime rates. Well I have a couple questions for Denis Henigan; the first is, exactly which surveys are you referencing? The second is how are you defining crime? The third is does the firearm have to have been fired for you to count it as being "used in self-defense?" Finally, the most telling question, and the one I am sure he would dismiss as absurd, is are you including in that comparison along with self-defense figures the number of times law-enforcement uses a firearm in any manner to protect themselves or others?

That last question I am sure will make many angry, because I've noticed that most of the people I talk to who are proponents of restricting the firearm ownership of citizens have no qualms about the use of firearms by police officers. That question though proves without a doubt that the issue isn't about the guns, it is about whose hands the guns are in. Law enforcement officers, and family members of law enforcement officers, can and have used their firearms to commit assaults and attempt suicides, just as ordinary citizens and their family members have. I would be willing to place a very substantive sum of money on the fact that Denis Henigan's crime figure in those surveys includes the crimes committed by law enforcement, but neglects to include the positive use of firearms by law enforcement on the self-defense side of that comparison.

The simple truth of the matter is that for all the firearms laws in the United States, few of them do anything to affect crime other than by providing disarmed victims. Denis Henigan would have us believe otherwise, and suggests to us that the evil gun lobby ignores crimes committed by gun owners and gun dealers and ignores the problems of suicide and homicide. The truth though is that the "gun lobby", the grandparents and grandkids, the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, and the friends and family that make up that lobby, do care. Suicide and homicide are issues that face both those who own guns and those who don't, and we'll never address the problems behind those issues if we keep making it about the weapons used, and not about the people. It is an easy excuse to blame the weapon for crime and suicide, but I and others like me make the hard choice to seek to address these issues without placing more burdens on those who choose a firearm for self-defense.