Don't let the gun nuts frame the debate [View all]

[Uzair]

I'm seeing it all over the place and it has to stop. They play the same old trick, and people, while well intentioned, are falling right into the trap. The fact is that they have nothing, and they know it. The "debate" on how to end gun violence is over, and has been over for decades. The statistics from the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, and a multitude of other nations comparable to the U.S. are irrefutable, and it's high time we stop allowing the gun nuts to pretend that these other nations are somehow inherently less violent. That being said, don't fall into these traps.


-- The second amendment trap --

Gun nuts will quote it, talk about it's interpretation, the founding fathers' intentions, and god knows what else. The second amendment is irrelevant to the issue. It's just a law, and laws can be changed. That's what the word "amendment" means.

Gun nuts will also say repealing the second amendment is never going to happen, the majority support it, and blah blah blah. Again, it's completely irrelevant. Japan doesn't have one. Canada doesn't have one. The UK doesn't have one. America doesn't need one either. Fuck the second amendment.


-- The first and other amendment trap --

Gun nuts will talk about other rights in the constitution, and how dare you suggest repealing one of them, do you want to repeal all of them? This is the slippery slope logical fallacy. This is not about any of the other amendments. And like I already said above, it's not even really about the second amendment. It's about passing sane laws to reduce or even eliminate (yes, it's possible. See: Japan) gun violence. To pass those laws, you must repeal the second amendment. Stop letting them change the subject with this "it's my right" bullshit.


-- The Americans are not like the others trap --

Gun nuts will constantly try to convince you that Americans are just more violent than all those other nations that solved the gun violence problem. Yet this is completely false. Americans are not any more violent or any less violent than anyone else. What Americans do have, though, is the easiest access to deadly weapons than any other nation on Earth that has solved this problem.

Stop letting gun nuts talk about anything else and everything else except the very goddamn things that are killing people, up to and including video games, movies, mental health, violent history, "multiculturalism" (THAT one is a particularly vile dog whistle), drugs, gangs (another racist dog whistle), etc.


-- The criminals will get one anyway trap --

This is patently false. Criminals have a HELL of a time obtaining a gun in Japan. It's damn near impossible for them to find one, because anybody in Japan who does have a gun had to go through hoops upon hoops to ensure that they actually are "responsible gun owners". They have to take courses, pass tests, get background checked, be interviewed by the cops, have their family and neighbors interviewed to ensure that there is no history of domestic violence, financial troubles, psychological issues, have to store their guns properly, have to register them, are not allowed to sell them without transferring the registration, must report if the gun is stolen, or lost. Criminals in Japan do not use guns because it's hard for them to get them.


-- The criminals will use other things to kill anyway trap --

True enough. Tell that to the man in China who attacked school children with a knife on the same day Sandy Hook happened. Not a single fatality. Not a single one.


-- The guns are just tools trap --

Stop letting gun nuts call guns "tools". They're not tools. They're weapons.


Ultimately, gun nuts are just people who have been indoctrinated though childhood to have an obscene affection for deadly weapons. They just love their guns, and will stoop to any level to protect their misguided notion that they have some kind of "right" to have them, including ignoring the facts about other nations and consistently dodging the issue with the above traps.

Again, there is no debate here. The issue has been settled long ago. They can't say anything that will change that fact. You can walk around at night in any city in Japan and feel totally safe. Totally, completely safe. Nobody is going to shoot you there. How can a gun nut explain that without talking about Japan's strict gun laws? The answer is they can't, so they change the subject. Don't let them.