DispositionMatrix
NES Member
Guns are specifically designed to kill: the logic error behind the whole gun debate
Sounds like an argument! But “guns are specifically designed to kill” is another way of saying that guns are inherently noxious or deviant. That’s a hypothesis, a starting point. And like any hypothesis about cake, death, or everything in between, it can’t be its own evidence.
Ok, fair enough, few people would disagree at this point. It’s logically sound, in formal terms. But actually internalizing this is a bigger emotional leap than many people are used to making. Because if you’re not allowed to assume a priori that guns are noxious (since that the thing you’re trying to prove), then you have to start from what is, for many people, an idea so jarring that it’s almost a paradox: that guns are not noxious.
That’s the null hypothesis — it’s not where folks have to end up, but it is where they have to start. That is extraordinarily difficult if you have, like many millions of people, literally no first-hand knowledge of healthy gun usage.