Common Sense Gun Control?

[ArfinGreebly]

Category Error

Remember that in the field of logic, you can render a problem "unsolvable" by placing it in the wrong category.

WW II -- Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor in a massive airstrike. FDR convinces Congress to declare war on airplanes, because the attack was carried out from the air, and therefore "planes are the problem."

Category error. The problem is a hostile, aggressive nation driven by [whatever motives] and williing to commit wholesale slaughter to achieve [whatever goals].


People are murdered by criminals. Many criminals prefer to use guns for that purpose. Government wants to ban guns, because "guns are the problem."

Category error. The problem is bad people who do bad things to good people.


Goverment and anti-gun activists complain about and do exhaustive studies on "gun crime." Conclude that "guns must be controlled to reduce crime" because, clearly, you can't have "gun crime" without guns.

Category error. Crime does not have a valid noun-as-adjective causative basis. Eliminating tools does not eliminate crime, and never has. Objects do not cause actions. The crime is "robbery" not "gun." The crime is "murder," not "gun." The crime is "assault & battery," not "gun."


Crime is a domain requiring criminal control, not object control.

 

[Manco]

Category error. The problem is bad people who do bad things to good people.

From the point of view of anti-gun politicians, however, people are just people, and guns make people more dangerous than they otherwise would be, so guns are the problem. To them, things like individual human rights (e.g. self-defense) are mere abstractions that fade into the haze from their high-altitude perspective.