Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes

[darrenlobo]

Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes

Which side wins depends on whether one can reason or simply react emotionally.

For a while back in the Winter, a retired philosophy professor (who wants to remain anonymous) and I exchanged a few emails and, from him, snail mail, discussing gun rights. After not hearing from him for several months he very unexpectedly mailed me a large envelope containing forty-nine newspaper clippings with many reports of shootings and a few anti-gun rights op-eds (and, strangely, a pro-gun op-ed by John Lott). He also included a fund raising letter from the Brady Campaign, another one from the Children's Defense Fund Action Counsel, a magazine ad from the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, and a hand written note. Especially surprising for their absence were any articles from scholarly source. Are there no scholarly articles in favor of gun control? He sent almost all anecdotes from mass media sources leaning heavily towards the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. One would expect better from university professor.

Read the rest at http://www.theinternationallibertari...anecdotes.html

[gummy jones]

Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes

Which side wins depends on whether one can reason or simply react emotionally.

For a while back in the Winter, a retired philosophy professor (who wants to remain anonymous) and I exchanged a few emails and, from him, snail mail, discussing gun rights. After not hearing from him for several months he very unexpectedly mailed me a large envelope containing forty-nine newspaper clippings with many reports of shootings and a few anti-gun rights op-eds (and, strangely, a pro-gun op-ed by John Lott). He also included a fund raising letter from the Brady Campaign, another one from the Children's Defense Fund Action Counsel, a magazine ad from the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, and a hand written note. Especially surprising for their absence were any articles from scholarly source. Are there no scholarly articles in favor of gun control? He sent almost all anecdotes from mass media sources leaning heavily towards the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. One would expect better from university professor.

Read the rest at http://www.theinternationallibertari...anecdotes.html

That is considered the pinnacle of peer review by antis. If we could only save one kid...

I have an idea that could have saved ~55 million...

[BSH]

Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes
One would expect better from university professor.

From a retired philosophy professor? No, not really, that's about what I would expect.

[darrenlobo]

From a retired philosophy professor? No, not really, that's about what I would expect.

[stainless]

Can't beat Ivory Tower philosophy for real life tips...

[Qtrborecrazy]

Darrenlobo, where did the professor get his education from, Havard, Yale, Berkley? Why not go to the NRA magazine and pull the stories of self defense and mail them back to him.

[ideaman]

So tell me, how are women, seniors, handicapped etc going to protect themselves when you removed the only effective tool they can defend themselves with?

[thundrr1]

So tell me, how are women, seniors, handicapped etc going to protect themselves when you removed the only effective tool they can defend themselves with?

Small nuclear field weapons will work. Yep, that's the ticket. Thank you Barry Goldwater for the idea.


Yes,,,, I did vote for him.

[win67]

I work at a research university and have a fair amount of contact with professors throughout the day. They are all capable of logical reasoning better than the average person, but I wouldn't say any of them are more inclined to be logical than anyone else would be. Basically, they're just very skilled at coming up with good explanations for the same irrational opinions that most people have. They also have a field of expertise that is so narrow it's mind boggling, and they have no competency whatsoever outside their field of expertise. I imagine that philosophy professors don't even have a narrow expertise counting in their favor, personally I'm not really sure what their purpose in society is. Probably to smoke pot and write letters to the Editor of the NYT while getting paid obscene sums of cash to do it.

[Brick]

win67

They also have a field of expertise that is so narrow it's mind boggling, and they have no competency whatsoever outside their field of expertise.

Lawyers are educated in a very broad manner, so they have a little knowledge about almost everything, they continue their education until they know almost nothing about everything. But, the Professors you speak of are educated in closely defined and limited areas, until they become so specialized that they know everything about practically nothing.

Is that about right?