To our friends who claim they need guns to protect them from the Government

[ElboRuum]

145. OK. Fair enough.

Just so you know, you are guilty of a "slippery slope" fallacy, which is a rhetorical fallacy that erroneously implies that one thing will inevitably lead to a worse thing, which will in turn lead to an even worse thing. The reason why it is a rhetorical fallacy is that it presumes that any position, no matter how rational a position at first, will inevitably give way to further less rational positions and, given enough time, to completely irrational positions.

The argument presumes that the ultimate goal of either the more restrictive position or the government is to ban all firearms, perhaps not now, but after a series of systematically more restrictive positions. I suppose for some that it's fun to believe this because it is so B-movie dystopian, showing precisely no faith in the human ability to reason or to take a position that is both in the interest of safety of the general populace, but preserving of the utility and purpose of the 2nd Amendment, even in its rather broad modern interpretation. It's very conspiratorial and ascribes to otherwise intelligent and rational people the worst image of the holder's worst fears, which is not a rational position to take, but it does seem to be quite plausible to some. It's very reality TV, presuming the worst motivations of one's opponent, but far from likely.

But let's just operate with what we've got here so far. The reason you've given here to the pro-gun position is one of a slippery slope, where reasonable restrictions on gun ownership and access will lead to further encroachment. Taken to a logical extreme, this amounts to a slide into a complete ban. At least, that is the position you're giving here. However, if you look at the track record of other Amendments which have had restrictions of common sense placed upon them, that not only is the argument rhetorically fallacious, but the motivation for that argument is nonsensical.

The First Amendment is a prime example of how reasonable restriction and boundaries on what is and isn't protected by the Constitution, both in letter and spirit, does not lead inexorably toward that scary slippery slope.

Many laws and decisions have been made on what constitutes free speech as protected by the Constitution to elucidate forms of speech are not Constitutionally protected. This did not lead to a slippery slope into widespread censorship or governmental oppression, even though by your position on the second, it could be very well argued that not only it probably should have but that it was inevitable that it would. Libelous or slanderous speech is not protected, but speaking the truth about someone is. But one example of many ways in which the First Amendment is regulated without disabling its primary utility in any oppressive way.