Gun Control Advocates are Severely Misguided

Demonization This is not necessarily "misleading" or being misled. Indeed, ad hominem is merely an informal fallacy--in this case more of an irrelevance [1]. For example, if I said I support abortion, and those who oppose it are hateful bigots against women. I may be mislead about the other person and their attitudes against women, but I may still be considered correct on the overall issue. Even if I used that argument in a debate, I may or may not be misled. I would merely be insulting the participant in the discourse. Indeed, if we watch Piers Morgan (a poor example of a gun contol advocate) insult that man, he may or may not be misled. He may mislead his viewers, that gun owners are all scum of the earth, but he himself may not be misled. His viewers themselves, even if they come to hate gun owners, may not be misled. To hold a predjudice view =/= misled. Many gun control advocates, the vast majority of them academics, are likely no misled or misleading. If anything, literature in Australia themselves may be misleading. Research by David Hemmingway, a leading gun control expert, has noted that pro-gun studies which find gun control having "no effect" are actually designed on purpose to get these results, either inadvertently or intentionally [2]. Merely attacking someone does not indicate being misleading, and the research on gun crime (which supports control) is not misleading. This argument is fairly weak, and those who support control actually have a solid empirical basis to support their views. Common senseMy opponent and I actually reach agreement here. Gun-control is a hard thing to study. But to say that basic controls are not common sense, well, is not common sense! Regardless, whether or not these "common sense" laws work is pretty easy to demonstrate when the right abount of data is taken. For example, Gary Kleck, who does not oppose bannign guns supports measures to restrict them to the general public. Guns in the hands of right people, he says, do good. Guns in the hands of bad people do bad. This is something hard to measure. However, he has claimed based on a literature review that a universal backround check system would reduce the gun supply to criminals and reduce crime rates [3]. My opponent creates a red herring. As PRO, he has the BOP. But he seems to be making a very defensive argument, and is refuting something I have not used. I have not compared country to country without studies that control for various non-firearm effects. I have not even compared the US crime to foreign countries in this debate! Regardless, this is a valid point. But this doesn't mean that the argument is misleading. Studies which compare countries and compare for certian variables can obtain valid results. The academic literature I have cited, although having cross-sectional analysis (which is to what my opponent is refering) as the methodology, they include controls which make the study a correlational study. This helps find a cause-and effect, which can confidently give us a clue as to what causes some of the differences. In the literature, guns arises almost universally. Gun violence fallacyOddly enough this is not in logic textbooks, you better get them to change that...Anyway, instead of arguing with the data, my opponent argues with the source. Now that is a real fallacy: the genetic fallacy. If you only argue with the source of the data, but have no conflicting results, it is essentially a concession. His only response is that the data focus on un deaths. However, my data on suicides focused on total suicies. To expand on the previous results, Daniel Webster et al. 2009 reports that total deaths increase as the amount of gun shows increase [4]. Expanding the dataset does not prove his case. Additional arguments1. Ok2. The funny thing is that you haven't offered any data yet. Just criticisms of specific gun control advocates, generalizations about them youself--based on that logic you are misled--and tell us to read links... 3. I have read hundreds of study on the issue. Technically there is a lot more anti-gun studies out there. Guns are a risk factor in deaths. Even though overal deaths are important--there may be substitution effects--the effect of the firearm drops generally outweighs the substitution effects (which, to a degree, exist). 4. You should read their conceal carry section. 14/15 of the reviewers felt that John Lott, and others, were wrong. That conceal carry has no effect on crime. However since them recent studies show that CCW increases crime. (ADZ 2012a, 2012b). Conclusion:My opponents affirmative position gives him the burden of proof. He has given not proof that gun controlers are misled. His statements under common sense and additional arguments are the only ones that should get weight. Being insulting does not mean acting on error! One flaw does not undermine an idea--usually. Ad hominem, although is indicative about that person does not describe a sub set of people. I am willing to bet the vast majority of academics on this issue who support gun control are not misleading themselves or the public. My opponent has not refuted my analysis. The resolution stands negated. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org...; 2. http://www.palgrave-journals.com...;3. Kleck, Gary. Targeting Guns: Firearms and their Control, 1997. 4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...