When people think about a social problem, like mass shootings or teen pregnancy, they tend to stake out a position on the subject first. Then they defend their position with anecdotes, statistics, and what they believe are logical arguments. Is it true that more guns mean less crime? Is it true that sex education leads to more teen pregnancy?
This post looks at a couple of misleading or mistaken claims that gun control opponents might use.
Defensive Gun Use:
Millions of words have been written on one gun-related question: How often do gun owners use guns to defend themselves or other innocent people from violent criminals? I won't rehash the debate here because my purpose is to call out one big problem in how gun control opponents use defensive gun use in their rhetoric.
What is defensive gun use? I know you think I just defined it for you but that's not quite true. Put on your scientific thinking hat for a minute and ponder ways to measure defensive gun use. What questions might you ask of people? What official statistics might you use? What cases do you include and what cases do you exclude? Why?
In social science lingo, you need to operationalize the term. In plain English, you need to define defensive gun use in a way you can measure it. (Social scientists will note that I am simplifying what operationalization is but never mind.)
Here are some potential problems in measuring defensive gun use:
1. Do you count people who were not allowed to own a gun, but had one anyway?
2. Do you count off-duty law enforcement officers? On-duty law enforcement officers?
3. Do you count armed security guards?
4. Do you count cases where someone escalated a fight and THEN felt the need to pull a gun?
5. Do you count cases where the person may have broken other laws, like threatening a non-violent person with a gun?
6. In the case of 1, 4, and 5 how do you know that person was being honest?
How many of those questions did you answer in your operationalization? My guess is that if you grill people who oppose strict gun laws, they will be unable or unwilling to answer any of those questions. Instead, they will talk about a "good guy with a gun" or cite a number that came from who knows where and has who knows how much truth in it.
As a gun control advocate, you have just learned a couple of tricks you can use when the subject of good guys stopping criminals comes up. This objection to more gun control is going to pop up like a groundhog. Someone on the gun control side will mention suicide at some point.
Guns and Suicide:
Does the easy availability of firearms lead to more suicides, or not? As with so many social issues, the debate tends to become disconnected from fact. Consider this example from a recent NPR segment: A guest speaking on gun control said we cannot use suicide prevention as an argument for gun control because Japan bans almost all guns and has a higher suicide rate. This claim raises four questions:
Gun control opponents will sidestep that issue by deciding that suicide does not count as a form of gun violence. They will offer some form of the argument you just read to show why we don't need to talk about suicide by gun. Can gun control advocates do something to fight these misleading arguments about suicide and about self-defense?
Refuting the Rhetoric:
Whenever it seems appropriate, bring up the issues just as I did above. (For now, we'll pretend that objections to tough new gun laws have a logical basis rather than an emotional one.) In an on the Web, you have time to find real data and expert analysis and present them. The point here is to educate anyone who wants a bit of information, not to win a debate or to convert the opposition. No single interaction or blog post could do that anyway. But many encounters with facts and real science can help convert people who are undecided.
As soon as possible, start looking at likely arguments from the other side. Prepare arguments to refute them and publish this information. Answer those questions about suicide and the availability of guns in a blog post. Look at what came up the last time gun violence or illegal immigration or fracking was "front of mind" and write about those arguments. Offer alternatives to arguments about why we need fracking, stop-and-frisk, more guns, whatever. Write about practical alternative ways to achieve whatever goal is at stake. If we need fracking to create good jobs, write about realistic alternatives for attracting good jobs.
This is only a taste of what can be done if you apply some social science thinking to a social issue.
This post looks at a couple of misleading or mistaken claims that gun control opponents might use.
Defensive Gun Use:
Millions of words have been written on one gun-related question: How often do gun owners use guns to defend themselves or other innocent people from violent criminals? I won't rehash the debate here because my purpose is to call out one big problem in how gun control opponents use defensive gun use in their rhetoric.
What is defensive gun use? I know you think I just defined it for you but that's not quite true. Put on your scientific thinking hat for a minute and ponder ways to measure defensive gun use. What questions might you ask of people? What official statistics might you use? What cases do you include and what cases do you exclude? Why?
In social science lingo, you need to operationalize the term. In plain English, you need to define defensive gun use in a way you can measure it. (Social scientists will note that I am simplifying what operationalization is but never mind.)
Here are some potential problems in measuring defensive gun use:
1. Do you count people who were not allowed to own a gun, but had one anyway?
2. Do you count off-duty law enforcement officers? On-duty law enforcement officers?
3. Do you count armed security guards?
4. Do you count cases where someone escalated a fight and THEN felt the need to pull a gun?
5. Do you count cases where the person may have broken other laws, like threatening a non-violent person with a gun?
6. In the case of 1, 4, and 5 how do you know that person was being honest?
How many of those questions did you answer in your operationalization? My guess is that if you grill people who oppose strict gun laws, they will be unable or unwilling to answer any of those questions. Instead, they will talk about a "good guy with a gun" or cite a number that came from who knows where and has who knows how much truth in it.
As a gun control advocate, you have just learned a couple of tricks you can use when the subject of good guys stopping criminals comes up. This objection to more gun control is going to pop up like a groundhog. Someone on the gun control side will mention suicide at some point.
Guns and Suicide:
Does the easy availability of firearms lead to more suicides, or not? As with so many social issues, the debate tends to become disconnected from fact. Consider this example from a recent NPR segment: A guest speaking on gun control said we cannot use suicide prevention as an argument for gun control because Japan bans almost all guns and has a higher suicide rate. This claim raises four questions:
- What does actual research show about the link between suicide and the availability of guns in the United States and in other countries? If there is no relevant data, then you just can't say whether guns and suicide are connected are not. Japan's higher suicide rate and low rate of gun ownership don't tell us anything.
- How often do people in the United States say they would have killed themselves if they had a gun, but instead had time to calm down? Or used a method that failed, like a drug overdose?
- What cultural differences make suicide more or less acceptable? One has to assume that cultural attitudes are the same to make a comparison between two countries, on anything.
- Why is a supposedly educated person using one example to make his case?
- Is the suicide rate in Japan significantly higher than in the United States?
Gun control opponents will sidestep that issue by deciding that suicide does not count as a form of gun violence. They will offer some form of the argument you just read to show why we don't need to talk about suicide by gun. Can gun control advocates do something to fight these misleading arguments about suicide and about self-defense?
Refuting the Rhetoric:
Whenever it seems appropriate, bring up the issues just as I did above. (For now, we'll pretend that objections to tough new gun laws have a logical basis rather than an emotional one.) In an on the Web, you have time to find real data and expert analysis and present them. The point here is to educate anyone who wants a bit of information, not to win a debate or to convert the opposition. No single interaction or blog post could do that anyway. But many encounters with facts and real science can help convert people who are undecided.
As soon as possible, start looking at likely arguments from the other side. Prepare arguments to refute them and publish this information. Answer those questions about suicide and the availability of guns in a blog post. Look at what came up the last time gun violence or illegal immigration or fracking was "front of mind" and write about those arguments. Offer alternatives to arguments about why we need fracking, stop-and-frisk, more guns, whatever. Write about practical alternative ways to achieve whatever goal is at stake. If we need fracking to create good jobs, write about realistic alternatives for attracting good jobs.
This is only a taste of what can be done if you apply some social science thinking to a social issue.
Comments
Post a Comment