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Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Senate Panel Votes for Ban on Assault Weapons [View all]Straw Man
(6,624 posts)74. Logic.
Last edited Sat Mar 16, 2013, 09:41 AM - Edit history (1)
Reductio ad absurdum: reduction to the absurd; disproof of a proposition by showing an absurdity to which it leads when carried to its logical conclusion; often specious.
And often not. Your solution to gun violence is to ban guns based on ease of use. There are rifles that have equivalent capacity and firepower to the AR but are somewhat more difficult to use. I merely suggested to you an even more effective application of your theory. If ease of use is the criterion, my proposal is simply an extension of yours.
Straw man (your moniker, not mine): a weak or imaginary opposition set up only to be refuted.
But cited by you. By definition, a true reductio ad absurdum cannot be a straw man, by virtue of its very absurdity: I would have to convincingly misstate your position in order to appear to have debunked it. I did not misstate your original premise that rifles that are difficult to use are preferable from a public safety standpoint to those that are easy to use. I merely pointed out its absurdity.
So your solution to mass shootings is to pre-emptively incarcerate hitherto non-criminals who strike the community as odd and potentially dangerous. People with mental illness, say? People with Asperger's? Folks who have committed no crime, but need to be off the streets and locked up, pronto! Yes, I see it now. Better to do that than ban your precious Bushmaster Man Card. No violation of anyone's civil rights there. No sir!
No points for hyperbole. I am Straw Man, but I disown that straw man. No, only the demonstrably dangerous ones, which I contend that Lanza was, a fact that would have been evident if his mother had not been able to use her wealth to cocoon him away from the world. Your solution is to transform the public sphere into the institution and force us all to live by restrictions designed to mitigate potential dangers posed by the severely mentally ill. I think yours is the scenario that is more damaging to civil rights.
I don't own a Bushmaster, nor any other AR pattern rifle, so you can dispense with that particular canard. I do, however, recognize a slippery slope when I see one. It's not rocket science, not when a legislator in my home state stands up on the floor of the Assembly and says "And there's much more to come" after passing the strictest gun control laws in the country.
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I picture such technology coming from the European gun industry before the US
gejohnston
Mar 2013
#96
Of course you would require this safety device on LE weapons. They need to be safe with weapons also
oneshooter
Mar 2013
#97
An AR is exactly as difficult to shoot as any other small-caliber, light-recoiling civilian rifle.
benEzra
Mar 2013
#89
Why should anyone own a laptop or tablet computer when they can have a desktop? ...
spin
Mar 2013
#18
So am I responsible for the murder of the 20 children because I do not support banning ...
spin
Mar 2013
#67
Since you mentioned that you are through arguing about this on-line, I will not ...
spin
Mar 2013
#82
Now we can see where we stand, if it gets voted down and more than half of Americans polled wants
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#51
If you think pushing an AWB is going to play in favor of the Democratic party in 2014 ...
Pullo
Mar 2013
#54
Once again if more than half wants the ban and those who does not vote for the ban they are not
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#59
That' a good idea everyone who owns high capacity high caliber weapons let's cut off their feet and
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#76
I wondered why the suggestion in the first place but it might curtain mass killings.
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#79