Ohio Congressman Bill Johnson made this argument the other day against limiting high-capacity magazines (at about 1:10):
Well, where does the limit stop? When you stop that, then do you start taking away handguns, do you start taking away shotguns, do you start taking away multi-round hunting rifles? You know, where does it stop?
Johnson is aptly demonstrating what is known in rhetoric class as the fallacy of the slippery slope (aka the Fallacy of the Beard, the Camel's Nose, the Boiling Frog, etc., etc.). The answer to his question, under Senator Dianne Feinstein's bill, would be 10 rounds for all magazines. The Feinstein bill also bans the sale, transfer, manufacture and importing of semi-automatic shotguns with a fixed magazine that can take more than five rounds.
(Video and interview from Ohio Capital Blog)
Leave a Comment:
Dead kids. When does it stop?
Amen
It never stops. Deal with it.
Actually in all honesty...probably in about 20-30 years...
once the baby-boomers start to die off and Gen X has retired I think a lot of things will change
Say it into the faces of the parents, Shooter! You horrible excuse for a human being!
No Shooter, we aren't going to 'deal with it'. What we are going to do is bypass neanderthals and gun fetish nuts, the idiotic end timer evangelical rapturists, the survivalists and anti-government terrorists, and get something done about gun control.
For almost 40 years the debate has been hijacked by extremists. No longer.
Deal with it.
Second amendment rights.
Deal with it.
Um, no. What part of a well regulated militia do you not understand?
The 2nd amendment is not absolute, no more than the 1st, the 4th, or any other amendment. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, can you? Why aren't you crying about that?
Additionally, the NRA has historically backed all gun laws, and even as late as 1999 backed universal background checks.
The armament manufactures have turned the NRA into their lobbying arm and the direct result has been more guns and more violence than ever before.
It is going to stop, and the normal majority will restore sanity and sensible gun laws.
DEAL WITH IT.
Pain
The constitution says " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" It says nothing at all about creating one or regulating one.
It also says that " the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
The first part only describes one reason why the second part is needed.
People like you love to pick and choose parts of the constitution that you agree with as the only parts you think are useful. You have to obey all of it.
For almost 40 years the debate has been hijacked by extremists.
Correct, It all started with the Brady bunch.
Dragoon
Liberals aren't the only people having children. Even though liberal voters get a raise every time they have a child.
The right to own firearms will continue.
Lo the birth of a new party game.
Once you allow taxation, where does it stop? Total confiscation?
Once you allow abortion, where does it stop? Murder?
Once you allow the teaching of evolution, where does it stop? Cannibalism?
@Vokoban, @Shooter242, take it easy.
Now I'm confused. Is the problem that you think Nazi Germany became that way all of a sudden, that I'm referencing Nazi Germany at all, or that you think I'm equating Obama with Nazi Germany?
I'm fine with every and any other analogy where people that one would think nice normal people become totalitarians via the slippery slope. Pick one, any one.
No Shooter, I simply asked if you were aware of the varied circumstances that gave rise to the Third Reich, and if you actually thought that the United States Government was in danger of being taken over by Nazis.
One will never know until it's too late. I'm sure Germany, Russia, Iran, et. al. didn't understand what they eventually became until it was done. Who would have thought DOJ would be writing papers on when to kill Americans without due process?
That said I was trying to figure out what I said to get deleted.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis
Shooter you have no clue.
Yay for attention to how we dance these dances.
Besides fallacies of logic, there is little attention to the language of the Right. I don't mean the rhetorical art of disguising ideas- I mean the structure of the signs they think within. For example, consider the language of the Skeet Shooter photograph. RM was diagrammatically going through the different elements the Right was pointing to. But there is much more than opportunities for levity there.
When is it acceptable to depict gun ownership of a gentleman in a dominant role in an estate setting, relaxed in casual attire of a wealthy elite? The image has the unmistakable language of economic and political power, and is the subject of many paintings in the 18th century (eg this or this or this). So what exactly are the disturbing signs of the times in this 21st century version of this image? If it is just about the gun issue, why is there an unbroken continuity of memes with these other birther type stories? This goes way beyond analysis of fallacious logic.
Prior to human consciousness, signs were recognized as indicators of intentionality. There is survival value to recognizing signs of predators stalking you, signs of prey, or signs of approaching danger. What a scene "means" is a crucial ability that it is so fundamental that it predates human consciousness. Yesterday, I referred to the semiotics of the GOP base, and it is illuminating to examine the activity at the raw level of processing of signs. Clearly, there is a range of mental activity when interacting with such signifiers perceived in the world around us. We have the residual reptilian ability to react directly to stimulus- a frog is wired to track moving flying objects and send out its tongue at the correct trajectory to intercept it.
Much of the far right's reaction is almost reptilian- automatic and unthinking. The communication rejecting the cultural signifiers excited by the photo are filled with the prosody of outrage that what appears to be so, cannot be so. This man cannot be powerful, cannot be an elite, cannot stand in an unfearful pose because the right does not have the language to understand such signs unless they are false- camouflage for some dangerous hidden thing.
They don't understand those eyes staring at them from that hidden darkness is a shadow of their own self.
Unfortunately, the Congressman has history on his side in terms of what's happened in other countries. Each time there was tragic shooting event, the range of gun control became ever wider. This is not a logical fallacy. This is historical fact. The one constant in all these shootings is that the shooters are mentally ill. It's our societal failure to 1) help the mentally ill recover, and 2) protect society from those who cannot control their murderous rages. Until we deal with this problem, gun control will simply shift the weapons of choice to gasoline or another easily obtained explosive.
So fight against further incursions when/if they're proposed. Let's hear your rationale against limiting to 10 round clips, on the basis of the actual proposed legislation.
Re: your second attempt at skirting the subject, mental health is difficult to grasp, complex to define and impossible to regulate. Suggesting that's where we put all our focus just makes people throw their hands up in confusion and resignatioin. Guns, on the other hand, are quite simple. They're machines. We should regulate them.
Also, are you suggesting that Adam Lanza would have taken the time to construct a bomb and not been caught had he not had access to his mother's legally obtained firearms?
MikeUrseth
Unless, you stupid twit you actually studied a country that had a mass shooting , severely restricted firearms and saw a resulting drop in mass shooting suicide and other mayhem caused by guns. .
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/politics/121217/sandy-hook-newtown-shooting-gun-control-australia-scotland-finland-changed-gun-laws-after-shooting
The limp dick a$$holes who need to get their masculinity by gripping an assault rifle make me sick .
Little boy rambo wannabes.
On the other hand, if all we have to worry about is the mentally ill, then why don't we just distribute bazookas to everyone? See? It works both ways.
And this exposes why WE can't have meaningful conversations regarding guns & regulations. From which rocks do these people roll out from under? Will they change their minds if the person shot is a bit closer to their own? Limiting magazine rounds, restricting assault rifles to military only usage - this is common sense.
Then again dealing with the current crop of RWNJ's "common sense" died a long time ago!
They took away my right to have a tank and a rocket propelled grenade launcher and look at what they want to do now.
They've already taken away my right to drive 120 mph on the freeway, too.
All these restrictions on freedom. Let's fight for our rights to do whatever we want to do, regardless of the cost to anyone else.
This Congressman's response is exactly why those wanting to pass some meaningful legislation and actually impact the discussion re: weapons ownership need to come out and actually propose the doomsday scenario these guys are fretting about so loudly. Then, stepping back to something else, like a national registry, insurance requirements, training, enhanced owner liability, etc., can be seen as a compromise. They're arguing for elementary school teachers strapping - we should therefore be arguing for black helicopters and melting down all their guns and repealing the 2nd Amendment, in order to move the Overton Window back to the actual middle.
The absurd have been reduced to arguing the absurd. I am not sure if we can shoe horn this into reduction ad absurdum.
Reason #789,868 why Ohio should be nuked, into orbit. I'm sorry Ohio, you tried!
If you can't hit what you're aiming at in under 10 rounds, then you have a bigger problem than the big, bad federal government taking away your guns.
The real question is when does the killing stop? In the opinion of this fellow, it should never stop. We, The People, need to live under the threat of death by suicidal, pissed off males(and maybe, as time goes by, pissed off females), wielding guns with 100+ rounds of ammo. Maybe, this tune will change when the death toll mounts into the triple digits on a monthly basis. Or maybe it will be changed when rich, private campuses become targets by one of their own. Nothing changes a mind faster than when the thing you defend shows up in your own back yard.
Oh maybe after they gun down a congresswoman or 20 innocent children? Nah
1612 and counting since Sandy Hook . If it was the flu we'd all be quarantined.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html
Thank you all for collapsing the Shooter and Volkoban comments and sparing my eyes
I went to the gun store today. Not to buy anything, mind you. I was shopping next door, picking up some yeast for my wine making, and I stopped by the gun store next door to have a look around.
I have never seen so many customers in a store with so many empty shelves in my life. This store normally has walls and displays filled with everything from a little pocket 22 to AR-15's. There were only a half dozen guns left on display. There is a month long waiting list to buy a gun. They have a wall dedicated to buying replacement magazines. The entire wall was empty, minus a few odds and ends, and a sign saying 3 magazines per customer. They were almost out of ammo.
On the floor was a weapon that become the most widely used sniper rifle in Iraq and Afghanistan. Calling this a "rifle" doesn't really give you an idea of how awesome and powerful this weapon is. It was a model similar to an Armalite AR-50. One cannot appreciate just how awesome such a weapon is until you see it in person.
http://www.mnfcsa.org/images/ar15/ar50.jpg
The utterly insane thing is that it is legal for the public to buy such a weapon. This weapon was not designed for self-defense. It was designed to knock down small buildings and kill people at distances as far away as a mile. If there was anything that should be banned, it should be this.
However, the more I think about this, the more I think we need to look at the gun issue logically and reasonably instead of making emotional knee-jerk decisions about it. It is no trivial matter when some of the reforms people are talking about would leave people like this defenseless.
"I felt like my life was threatened, and I wasn't ready to die"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Ps1ZC1-Qw
If you guys haven't read Sam Harris' recent piece on guns, I highly recommend it. It changed my thinking on this issue in a lot of different ways.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun
In the thread "How to ignore a national consensus", #13, the above person wrote "As I've thought more about this, I'm now of the opinion that there shouldn't be any background checks at all." If you really want to read his "argument" in defending that assertion, it's there...at inordinate length.
The GOP is so concerned about 2nd Ammendment infringement right to bear arms, yet they are determined to impede certain citizens from the 15th Ammendment right to vote. Can you say hypocrasy at its best?
If you can't hit your target in 10 shots, you shouldn't be allowed to use a gun at all.
Self-defense training with a gun teaches you to shoot your target in different ways to achieve different results. For instance, if you're able to take the shot, shooting someone in the hip will prevent them from putting any weight on their entire leg, and they will typically fall flat on their face. This is usually non-lethal, and if done correctly, can save you from attack in most instances.
But suppose you can't take such a shot. Suppose 4 people are coming at you and they mean business. As in you're-not-sure-you're-going-to-live-through-this business. You've got to stop them. All of them.
If lethal force is the only way you'll live, then self-defense gun training teaches you to take 3 shots. First shot to the heart. Second to the other side of the chest. Third, to the head, aiming for the tip of their nose. Such a shot will face the least resistance from the skull, and will sever the brain stem, killing the person instantly. However this is a small target, that's how to hit when that target is moving. Thus, why it's the 3rd shot.
I realize this is an unpleasant thought, but adult life is filled with such unpleasantries. Please note this is something that I hope I never, ever, ever have to do. But I would rather know how to do this in case I need to, than need to and not know how to do it.
Moving targets are much harder to hit. Even a good shot will often miss a few times. This means that with a 10 round magazine, you've already run out of ammo.
No thanks. I'll keep my standard sized magazine, that doesn't extend out of my gun and holds 17+1 rounds. I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
Excellent article except for a few facts. Adam Lansa did not use an assault rifle. He left the Bushmaster in the car. MSNBC and the other liberal outlets won't easily give up that info because it doesn't fit into their agenda.
The original article this post is based on is about the slippery slope. If you read the posts of all the usual posters on this site one would believe the premise to be fully backed up. When called on this they immediately throw out the old stand by: Nobody wants to take all your guns. My question is this: How does one debate an issue with people that refuse to use facts?
Pot...kettle...black.