Posted on 04/22/2008 7:23:23 PM PDT by skyman
A family member is preparing for a debate on the pros/cons of on gun contol. Of course they are taking the "con" side.
I'm trying to help them prepare with the best "ammo" I can find. I know there is a lot of information on the web, but are there any specific articles or other information you can recommend?
-Information with facts and statistics is best.
-Information how gun control led to confiscation and gun bans in UK and Austrialia would also be helpful.
Thanks
Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Gulag Archipelago
The Killing Fields
Hotel Rwanda
Facts and reason are useful to argue people out of their positions, if they used (or thought they used) facts and reason to get into their position, but a lot of gun-haters just use emotion: guns are used to murder people, therefore, guns are bad, and should be banned. For people who think that way (really, who emote that way), facts, statistics, and logic will do little.
Instead, read this article to those people: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2002200/posts
A Google search of both will turn up what you need. Unfortunately there is a rock singer or something named Colin Greenwood so you might need to put "Inspector colin greenwood" or maybe add gun control to the search criteria to keep from getting too many superfluous hits.
John Lott - more guns, less crime - or something like that...
Yes, www.johnlott.org I believe.
Since both sides of the argument are well known, I would suggest debating “from left field”, that is, from an unknown direction. It has several advantages over just rehashing old arguments.
To start with, it is much harder to refute a new argument, because your opponent has no familiarity with what you are saying, even though you are studied on it. Second, because they don’t know what you are going to say, they have to pay attention to your arguments. This is distracting to them, and breaks their continuity.
Third, your audience, if there is one, will also have to pay attention to you. Directing and keeping attention on your arguments is a good way to get them to “invest” in what you are saying.
Here is a listing of 38 ways to win an argument. To know these is very useful both offensively and defensively in a debate, both in how you make your arguments, and if you can recognize a technique used by your opponent, to counter their arguments:
http://forevergeek.com/articles/38_ways_to_win_an_argument.php
Importantly, most people only use one or two of these techniques, and maybe the top five are used more than all the rest put together.
For example, if I had to debate against gun control, I might start by asserting that a lot of the opponents to gun liberty do so because they are afraid of loud, unexpected noises.
Importantly, this is not a lie, in that there is more than a grain of truth in it. If examined, their objection is not to a lead bullet leaving the gun or hitting someone, it is that guns are *scary*. And they are scary because they produce a loud, unexpected noise.
It will be next to impossible for them to prove that gun control people aren’t afraid of loud and unexpected noises.
Now besides which of the 38 argument techniques I used, I want to point out that it is essential in a debate to always have at least some truth to your arguments.
This is why liberals often lose debates, and descend into curses, accusations and threats. Because they will often take debate arguments that are utterly without foundation, and they know it.
The rebuttal to this is to point out that they are lying, and that they know they are lying, and so are trying to change the subject or muddy the issue.
For you to have solid statistics and numbers at your command then puts you in a position to deliver a coup de grace and demolish their arguments. Before they are weakened, however, they can easily counter with their own statistics, no matter how contrived.
Pretty good. Thanks.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2005364/posts?page=82#82
Others have mentioned John Lott (excellent stuff). But my personal favorite single article is this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38c016b73711.htm
Check out the various gun forums, such as SASS (Single Action Shooting Society), Gunblast, Gun and Game forums, etc. Look for articles how individuals protected themselves.
When you depend on someone else to protect you, you are giving up your freedom, your property, and your life to someone else.
For the UK experience Google “Joyce Malcolm” — and read all her articles on the internet, and her books.
Excellent site
Here's Google's cached copy.
Here it is at another website:
THE UNABRIDGED SECOND AMENDMENT, by J. Neil Schulman
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