EAllusion wrote:
How so?.
I stopped watching it about half way through when he tried to refute the argument about gun related deaths being fewer in states with tougher gun laws, which I'll address in a minute.
In a nutshell, this guy reels off sound bites from Young Turks, and then tells us what the guy is
really arguing after he cuts him off. I see it as a slew of non sequiturs leading to straw man arguments. For example, he quotes the guy saying he'd like to see legislation getting the number of guns under control, and then cuts him off to explain that what he
really wants is to take guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. But that isn't necessarily true. In fact I can't think of a single argument on the Left that seeks that kind of legislation.
He says Cenk cited examples of gun violence to make that case, but it isn't clear at all that this is what he was doing. Without full context of the show, we just have to take his word for it that he is constructing his argument faithfully, and not reconstructing it to suit a straw man. He also starts criticizing Cenk for not mentioning a news article whereby some off duty police officer shot a man who was "shooting at people at a theater." He said he intentionally ignored it because that news article didn't "fit the narrative" the liberals were trying to create. Well, I looked up that article and found out that this person had the opportunity to kill many people, but didn't. In fact he
didn't shoot at anyone. Instead, he left his crowded place of employment armed, and started shooting at objects in the street, including a police vehicle and a building where there happened to be a movie theater. That's hardly a guy trying to commit mass murder. So to use this as an example of someone using a gun to prevent a mass killing, is simply disingenuous. So he then jets back to Cenk to quote him saying "we are swimming in an ocean of weaponry," which should fall into the "no crap" category. And then goes back to this article to make the point that swimming in an ocean of weaponry is a good thing because it saves lives in times of violent assault by those same weapons. Not only is this idiotic, it pretends as though Cenk was in any sense criticizing the
legal use of a weapon by, of all people, a police officer! This guy is just an idiot the way he tries to manipulate the argument to suit his straw man needs. And this is the problem I have with the Right Wing's approach to this issue. They can't stand to be serious enough to hear our argument. Instead they manufacture more paranoid scenarios insisting the "left" wants to break down their doors and take guns from law abiding citizens. What utter horse manure! There are a number of measures that could be taken to regulate the number of guns on the streets. Take for instance the
groceries for guns buy-back program in LA which just yielded more than 1,500 guns and assault weapons.
He then attacks Cenk for refusing to mention Mexico as an OECD country because it has with strict gun laws and high crime. This to me is idiotic because it misses the point. Just because two different countries have "gun control laws" doesn't mean they are equal or enforced equally. Mexico may have a ton of gun laws, but they are all rendered irrelevant because Mexico is a third world, corrupt country like so many other Latin countries where the black market rules and law enforcement is an absolute joke. It was also illegal to own a gun in Brazil, and yet getting one was fairly easy and there were hardly any legal repercussions because law enforcement sat on their hands the whole time. So his intent is to imply that strict gun laws leads to high rates of gun violence when in fact that isn't the case at all. If it were, then you'd see the same in all other countries where strict gun laws are enforced. Gun law legislation has yielded wonderful results in
countries like Australia and Japan, so this guy should be criticized for neglecting to mention those countries whose gun law statistics don't "fit the narrative" he is trying to create for gun lovers. He also fails to explain why Mexico was excluded in that chart. As the researcher explained:
In my view, Estonia and Mexico are not good comparison cases for the US. You may disagree. The countries whose average rates are below the US but come closest to it in some years are Chile and Israel. Consult the individual country panels to get a sense of when and and how close these countries are to the U.S. rates.
But in any event, Cenk never said he was comparing the US with
all other OECD countries, just "some" of them to drive home the point that we clearly stand out from the crowd.
About the states having tough laws, this guy says injury isn't necessarily assault by violence, but that's beside the point. He's speaking so quickly and throwing up so many charts that it gives the impression that he's sticking to the point and refuting it, when in reality he is just throwing up smoke and mirrors with this game of semantics. I don't think too many people on the Left care to split hairs over whether gun related deaths came from accidental injury or violent assault. Who cares? The point is, Americans are dying in droves because there are too many guns. Accidental deaths via injury are part of the problem just the same. Which is the #1 reason why I won't own a gun. If I had a gun in my home, the chances of it being used to fend off a burglar are much less than the chances of it being used by one of the neighborhood kids:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/ ... ambiguity/I'm not in Brazil any longer. There have been no reported armed burglaries in my neighborhood in twenty years. It just doesn't happen, and probably won't for quite some time. The need to defend my family against armed assailants in public depends strictly on where I take them. I can see taking a gun on a camping trip to defend against wild animals, but I've never even come close to needing one while living in the USA.
The fact is more guns more deaths, is the general rule that has proved consistent with few exceptions:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hi ... index.htmlThe anomalies like Switzerland and Israel, constantly used by Gun lovers, are easily explained once one understands why there are so many guns in these countiries:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... g-utopias/