Modus Ponens, point five oh.

[mangosteen]

So, given the following statements:

1. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
2. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
3. "Don't shoot anything you wouldn't want to kill."

I turn the crank and get "Society would be better off if we had more people who were willing to kill."

Am I missing something, here?

Comments

[rednikki]

I don't think you're missing anything.

[also_huey]

We are a nation of laws. ...and five million people who have seen the 1995 Stallone "Judge Dredd".

[wotw]

The only thing that stops a tumor is a guy with a scalpel. Do you want to conclude that "Society would be better off if we had more people who were willing to wield scalpels?". Or might it not be better to conclude that "Society would be better off if we had more people who were both willing and competent to wield scalpels in those times and places where some good is likely to come of it?"?

A more careful turning of your crank would give you something like "Society would be better off if we had more good people who were willing to kill bad guys in circumstances where doing so might be socially beneficial". Which really doesn't sound so implausible.

[mrf_arch]

Conveniently for the NRA, Smith&Wesson, Colt, North American Arms, and countless others, pretty much everyone out there is convinced that they are the good guy and the other fellow is the bad guy.

[rosefox]

Humans aren't tumors. Firearm owners aren't trained surgeons. A high-stress unexpected life-or-death event isn't a surgical procedure. Society is not better off when people attempt to divide their fellow humans into "good people" and "bad guys", let alone when they allocate to themselves the privilege and responsibility of deciding--in the heat of the moment--which of their fellow humans deserve to die, and of serving as executioners (assuming they aim correctly and don't hit any bystanders or otherwise make things worse).

I find it incredibly depressing that you think it "doesn't sound so implausible" that an appropriate reaction to an epidemic of armed people killing their fellow citizens is to have more armed people killing their fellow citizens.

[tisiphone]

Define "good people". Define "bad guy". Define "socially beneficial". Explain why you think a solitary "good guy" acting as judge, jury and executioner on a "bad guy" in the time it takes to draw and fire a trivially available handgun is ever likely to result in "socially beneficial" outcomes.

[tisiphone]

Nope, I think you've followed it to the logical conclusion. From vigilante justice to military boosterism, the underlying sentiment is very much "we should be more killer-ish".

[vatine]

In Sweden, more moose kill people than humans with guns kill people (or, I think, humans with cars kill people). Nonetheless, there is no license requirement to keep a moose (memo to self: there's health and wildlife regulations in place, stopping you from owning and housing a moose in most, if not all, city-planned areas), but there are licensing and training requirements for firearms (and cars).

On the other hand, a "pet" moose is somewhere between more and very much more likely to cause harm to its keeper than a gun is, so I guess it's a self-limiting situation.