Every time the issue of gun control shoots its way in the public forum, 2nd Amendment extremists - those who insist that every weapon falls under its purview - trot out hypothetical arguments involving knives, motor vehicles, alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes.
"Why not," they so smugly query, "simply ban automobiles? Tens of thousands of people die from car crashes, every year!"
If it's not cars, it's cutlery; if it's not pot, it's prohibition. Gun enthusiasts will go to any lengths to equate gun violence with any other type of death or homicide statistic in order to make what are reasonable propositions seem outlandish.
The problem with these straw man arguments is that it is an entirely false comparison.
There is nothing comparable about the roughly 66.3% of homicides attributed to gun violence and the 13.2% attributed to cutting or stabbing (2008 figures). Except for the fact that people died, little about those two percentages is easily aligned, in terms of magnitude.
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Now, some arguments are valid:
1.) Criminals aren't likely to follow gun control laws - they're criminals.
Well...valid, up to a point. I counter that argument with the following - if we had effective gun legislation (like that passed by Australia in the late 90s), requiring the destruction of existing and cessation of production of new assault weapons, their access to these weapons would be greatly lessened.
2.) If they can't get it, here, they'll get the guns from other criminals.
I guess that's true. It happened with prohibition and the outlawing of drugs, and it's likely to happen with any piece of legislation. But, really, is this any reason why laws, in general, should be done away with? Isn't this the very beginning of the concept of anarchy?
Imagine if we approached every law with this sort of thinking - I could just go get gay married where and whenever I want! I could file joint Federal taxes with my new husband. And you know, I feel confident enough in my driving abilities to do so at any speed I damn well please, regardless of the weather conditions; and why should I have to use windshield wipers when it rains?
3.) Prohibition didn't work, and the war on drugs has been useless, so why should gun control work?
This is another good place for a thought to start that ends up in the hall of nincompoopery. Unlike drugs and alcohol, which have the potential to be brewed at home, few people have the wherewithal to create makeshift assault weapons.
And, forgive me for being glib, but unless I'm greatly mistaken, but I haven't seen too many machine guns (by which I mean fully automatic weapons) making the rounds in the violent crime scene, so clearly something's working.
4.) We should be focusing on mental health issues! Guns don't kill people; crazy people kill people!
Well, this is another valid point. We should be focusing more on mental health issues, and since you brought it up, let's talk about which President basically did away with funding for mental healthcare in the U.S.
That's right! It was the GOP Patron Saint, St. Ronnie the Forgetful, who cut funding exponentially for mental health services.
At any rate, if we were to adequately address the issue, we'd have to start having people involuntarily committed, again - and I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but several of those people would likely come from the paranoid ranks of the TeaTards, gun nuts, and probably Wayne LaPierre, truth be told.
Now, let's just imagine the outcry from the Right if the paranoid ranks of their base suddenly found themselves locked up for their (obvious) mental illness and failure to live in reality.
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Look, I get it - you want to argue about things that are almost entirely unrelated. But, if you're going to make empty arguments, at least make intelligent ones.
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