One of the gun-grabbers' favorite arguments is that guns themselves are the cause of "gun deaths" - as if the firearm decided to go off by itself, or its mere presence caused an accident or made someone mishandle it and kill someone. The truth is far from that.
Much has been written about the number of children and teens (people under the age of 20) who are killed in incidents involving firearms as being more significant than the number of people under 20 who are killed in incidents involving motor vehicles.
It is a ridiculous comparison. It is meant to elicit an emotional response.
Nearly all incidents involving motor vehicles are unintentional deaths (accidents). There may be a few homicides and suicides. The vast majority of vehicle deaths are accidents.
Nearly all the incidents involving firearms are intentional. Murder, Gang Violence or Black-on-Black Crime. There are some accidents, but the vast majority are homicides. People are choosing to kill children and teens with firearms or choosing to kill themselves with firearms.
In 2019, 96.4% of those killed with firearms were intentional. In 2020, 96.5% were intentional. In 2019, 61% of deaths where the intent was known (homicide, suicide, or accident) were homicides; suicides were 35%. In 2020, homicides were 66%, Suicides were 30%.
By contrast, fatal firearm accidents for all ages dropped more than 94% from 1933 to 2017. Those small number of incidents cited are caused mainly by irresponsible adults. Nearly all firearm fatalities happen because someone decides to commit a crime, killing someone or themselves.
There's more at the link, including the (official) source data for the graphic above.
Almost all anti-gun arguments are based on emotion: fear, faux compassion ("It's for the chiiiiiilllldren!!!") and appeals to feelings. When facts are brought to bear, those arguments are offset by an overwhelming weight of evidence as to the reality of firearm usage. Almost every time a gun is fired, it's fired deliberately, either in the commission of a crime, or an act of self-defense, or hunting or target shooting. It's hardly ever accidental, and there's always a human in the loop somewhere.
It's worth bookmarking the linked article, and keeping its data in mind when confronted by those wanting to take away our firearms and our constitutional rights. There's no point in responding to emotion with yet more emotion. Facts put us on a stable footing, and give us a solid, unwavering argument in response to appeals to feelings.
Peter
9 comments:
Good comments but I must disagree with your last two sentences. You will never convince an emotionally driven person with logic. That leaves rhetoric. Plato had this all figured out 2500 years ago.
First they want to disarm us, then they'll kill us. Saw that somewhere.
Agree, with your first thought but disagree with your rhetoric comment.
As I posted over at Divemedic:
You Cannot Reason People Out of Something They Were Not Reasoned Into.
I was disagreeing with Divemedics premise that you should continue to preach facts to the Gun grabbers. He thought it was "exercising your rights" I countered that I've never heard of a Gun grabber getting converted by mere words, please show me different.
I HAVE Heard of gun grabbers faking a complaint of fear to get a Red Flag dropped on a vocal "gun nut".
Your just ID'ing yourself as a target for their anti-gun issues and that violates grey man OPSEC when "See something, SAY something" again raises its head.
Propaganda and brainwashing use emotional appeals not logic.
I still have coffee with folks that complain about inflation, gas prices too high and such but still HATE Trump and support the Ukraine nonsense. They are intelligent enough but cannot SEE that their support of the Biden idiots is creating their misery. FACTS like how we were NOT at war under Trump and how much cheaper everything was under Trump is met with smoldering rage.
So I suggest we STOP trying to teach a pig to sing, it ANNOYS the Pig and wastes your time.
EricW:
No, it was Aristotle who figured it out two millenia ago.
"For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible... "
There's a reason we don't teach Aristotle any more. He's dangerous; people might start thinking for themselves, and detect propaganda.
I frequently summarize all gun control arguments thusly: "The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant."
"You can't argue a person out of a position using facts, logic, and common sense, that they didn't get themselves into using facts, logic, and common sense."
Re-branding "homicide" as "gun violence" was a brilliant move by the gun grabbers.
Don in Oregon
The narrative is always more important than the truth. One of the biggest intellectual failings of the right is the inability to truly understand that thought and logic has no effect on those on the left.
@ lpdbw - Of course you are correct, Aristotle wrote "Rhetoric".
Getting rid of the shooter produces full prisons and less democrat voters. Getting rid of the tool used will end up with jails are fuller and there are fewer republican voters. Its a basic how to kill a republic ideology used by those that have defrauded their way in to power for riches.
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