I frequently talk about gun violence in a variety of places. I also repeatedly attract #gunutters who want to shut me down. They never succeed. Of course sometimes I excuse myself from the conversation when an opponent proves to be incapable of sustaining a rational, intelligent, or cordial dialog, but I count that as a loss for them, not me.
At any rate, it is common knowledge that the state government in Virginia, under the leadership of Governor Ralph Northam, was handed to the Democrats in the autumn of 2019. One of the issues these elected candidates pledged to so something about is the issue of our out-of-control gun violence. They delivered in January of 2020 with seven bills that focused on gun safety including improving background checks and a red-flag law that temporarily removes guns from those prone to violence, especially domestic violence. Bravo, Virginia. And thank you.
But this blog entry is devoted to a sort of yay-guns argument and criticism that gunutters inevitably respond with when any type of meaningful action to reduce firearm violence is taken. I only mention the situation in Virginia because it proved to provide the crucible for the comments (below) that I found and responded to on Twitter.
First, we have Governor Northam himself, properly cheering an agenda item that he has felt responsible to address and promote, namely, doing something about gun violence:
Then, as always, a yay-guns troll emerged:
This Tweeter, Scott Jackson @sjbr549, provides a classic example of a straw-man fallacy, or the informal logic miscue that attempts to assign and rebut an argument that was never made by the opposition in the first place. Neither Governor Northam nor the Virginia state legislature has mandated that its citizens hand in all their guns. This meme is nothing more than an effort to change the subject and get the gunutters all riled up and laugh at the allegedly unstable government. Ha ha.
Another Tweeter mentioned out that Scott totally missed the point (which is more or less true), at which point the feature Twitter user I want to highlight jumped in, “John Crenshaw Sometimes Jack Pierce” @nostalgicragehq:
@nostalgicragehq John Crenshaw provides a link to the 1970 Kent State Massacre Wikiepdia entry. His argument here seems to be that the 1970 Kent State University shootings of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard during a mass protest proves that we cannot trust government agents with guns. So I thought it only fair to respond to @nostalgicragehq:
Four students were killed (and nine more seriously injured) at the Kent State Massacre. If John’s argument is that this people-with-guns body count is too high (and I agree), and that since it was done at the hands of government officials (also true), then we cannot trust government actors with guns (somewhat doubtful).
But ok, fair enough. I don’t think that one serious mistake by the government means that we can never trust the gov’t any more than one act of amazing altruism and benevolence means that we can always trust a government, but I understand the sentiment. The problem is that it’s just not that simple.
But more to the point, if we can’t trust folks with guns because 4 innocent college students were killed, then it’s only fair to say that more than 30,000 citizens dead from non-military gun violence EVERY SINGLE YEAR for the last 20+ years must also be taken into account. The reality is that the USA has lost more of its citizens to domestic gun violence than ALL of our service men and women in ALL of our wars COMBINED since the founding of our nation (and including the Revolutionary War). But of course these facts don’t fit John’s narrative, so rather than acknowledge the logic problem he painted himself into a corner with, @nostalgicragehq fired back with this:
Here’s where John plods into utterly predictable gunutter la-la land. Rather than dealing with the fact that his argument just got owned and exposed, John misses the point and tries to change the subject. He claims that I am doubling the gun-related murder rate. Unfortunately for John, I never mentioned gun-murders. I mentioned the more than 30,000 U.S. citizens who die (let alone all those who are seriously injured) at the end of a gun’s barrel. And I didn’t double it. In fact, as I alluded to, the number is actually higher than the 30,000 I mentioned. Fail #1
Similarly, it is typical for the yay-guns crowd to pretend that somehow suicide by gun doesn’t count as gun violence and/or that somehow we should trust suicidal people with guns. It’s mind boggling. Fail #2 and #3, and that’s just @nostalgicragehq’s first sentence.
Then he moves to another classic gunutter “argument” that more than 30,000 dead people from gun violence in a country of over 300 million just isn’t that big of a deal. This is patently stupid prima facie, but it also totally undercuts @nostalgicragehq’s original argument about the 4 dead students at Kent State in 1970. John apparently wants us to believe that 30,000+ dead is insignificant, but that 4 dead is proof of something. Fail #4 for @nostalgicragehq.
He tries to further change the subject with his third sentence about homicides with a rifle. Once again this is an adventure in completely missing the point. Like other gunutters, he desperately wants to shift the subject away from his failed argument and towards any number of other red-herrings that he thinks he knows something about. But to stay on-point myself, I didn’t mention murders or rifles, just tens of thousands of folks who are gunned down by people with guns. John fail #5.
I thought it fair to tell @nostalgicragehq that he completely missed the point, hoping that just maybe he would take time to reflect on the poor argument he tried to push. As usual, getting a gunutter to reflect thoughtfully proved to be more difficult than it should’ve been:
Continuing to completely miss the point, John doubles down on his failures and also tries to tack on some insults. He claims that I am ignorant and/or mistaken about how many of our citizens die from gun violence each year, but I am citing well established fact. His further efforts at insulting me, pondering if I am merely inept or lying, is only that much more embarrassing. He simply has no idea what he’s talking about, but like other gunutters, he’d rather try to insult his betters than learn anything. So predictable.
In summary, let’s review a few of the typical gunutter strategies:
1) They love to make use of the straw-man fallacy by attacking an argument that their opponent never made.
2) They never acknowledge that their arguments are failures.
3) They will purposefully ignore (or unwittingly miss) their opposition’s points.
4) They will desperately try to change the subject and/or throw red-herrings in the way.
5) They will inevitably try to cover their ignorance and failed arguments by insulting their opposition.
There are other argumentative failures that people will stumble into, but @nostalgicragehq hit all of the above highlights in just three tweets. I’m tempted to say it’s impressive, but it’s not. It is sad.
Postlude
There are some who will say that calling gun owners “gunutters” is condescending, as is the tone of some of my blog posts on guns. This is a partial truth. I am condescending to idiots who cannot think for themselves and whose best efforts rarely transcend mere name calling.
“But YOU are calling people names with ‘gunutter!’” my critics will retort. Yes, that is true, but this is not all gun owners. I know some reasonably intelligent people who own guns, store them properly -unloaded- (every time), don’t let anyone “play” with them, advocate for reasonable gun laws, have zero problem with limiting things like silencers, high-capacity magazines, etc. and who would peaceably give up their guns if the law asked them to do so. These folks are NOT gunutters. They are RESPONSIBLE gun owners. We need more of them, not less, and I would never try to insult them. No, the gunutters are those who think that more than 30,000 dead people per year from gun violence are insignificant. They’re the ones who oppose any and all reasonable efforts to mitigate gun violence, or any and all efforts to limit the types of guns and ammunitions available for them. These are the folks who try and tell us that guns make us all safer or are a “God-given right,” or that gun control means that the government is about to engage in genocide against their citizens. These are the voices that call for civil war or think that they and their band of basement bubbas could successfully take on the United States Armed Forces, and that the majority of Americans would support these Quixotic delusions. But most often, The Gunutter is represented by the lonely, angry guy on Twitter who constructs poor arguments, swallows propaganda with nary a thought, tries to insult folks, and does it all while generally making a fool of himself without ever even realizing that he’s done exactly that. It is truly a testament to the power of the gun industry, its lobbyists, and gullible American citizens who can’t (or won’t) engage in some critical thinking.
Meanwhile the gun-related blood in the streets continues to flow.
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