Gun ‘tards

Juan was not the first to express his belief that gun owners are stupid. It has long been a belief among anti-gun bigots that gun owners are fatter and slower and dumber that “the enlightened ones”.

In response to Juan’s claim Eric Shelton sent me an email:

EricShelton

Juan, do you really want to go there? ‘Cause one of those cards says I’m a gun owner, and the other one says statistically I’m probably a fair bit brighter than you. Perhaps we’d waste less time if we had an IQ test before one were allowed to speak? You know, since we apparently have no problem infringing on the rights of others based on perceived intellect and all…

Don Kates pointed out as far back as 1994 the belief that gun owners are stupid uneducated yahoos failed reality tests when sociological studies demonstrated gun owners were actually better educated, had better jobs, and were only willing to use violence in defense of crime victims.

I cannot count the number of times I have been in conversations face to face or electronically with anti-gun people and had them “vapor lock” (as hazmat expressed it) after a question or two. In nearly all instance either they or someone else nearby declared “Reasoned Discourse!” and shut down the conversation to avoid excessive embarrassment to the anti-gun side of the discussion.

Last May when I had the chance to ask Paul Helmke a question I asked why he only talked about the rate of crimes where guns were involved. After all isn’t the total crime rate a better indicator of the effectiveness of restrictions on personal weapons? Because Alan Gura picked up the chase and took it in a slightly different direction I didn’t get a chance to respond to Helmke’s answer, “Our organization focuses on the one component of violence.” If I had been able to respond I would have pointed out, “The components of the crime vector are not orthogonal, hence you cannot consider them independently.” But he probably wouldn’t have understood anyway.

As Roberta X said, “Bring it on!”

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14 thoughts on “Gun ‘tards

  1. Hell I became a supporter of gun rights and a gun owner (in that order) BECAUSE of my science background, and my access to research materiel. I got my ass handed to me by some gun-rights people in a debate, so I went to the books to build a rock-solid rebuttal.

    I couldn’t find one. Not able to live a life of dishonesty, I switched sides.

    I’m disgusted by people who can’t manage to do that.

  2. David,

    If people want to send them I’ll be glad to post them.

    I don’t have a Mensa card. Would my M.S. in Electrical Engineering and patent certificate be sufficent?

  3. Just watch some old Bugs Bunny cartoons with Elmer Fudd in them. That pretty much describes the antis’ image of gun owners. Maybe they’ve gotten too much of their World View from watching cartoons. That would explain a lot.

  4. Publius,

    Of course. But the point is that their dismissal of our position because “gun owners are stupid” makes them vulnerable to us saying that, by their own rules, is valid for us to dismiss their position when we show we are smarter than them.

    In essence, we claim anyone not ruled by a court as being a danger to themselves or others has a right to own a firearm. They say, “Stupid people should not be allowed to own a gun.” We say, “I guess that leaves you out then. And since you don’t have guns anyway, there is no need to make a law. The stupid people, like you, already don’t own any.”

    Or alternatively, “So you are saying that you are smart enough to decide what is best for everyone? Interesting… It turns out we are smarter than you so that must mean it’s perfectly valid for us to decide.”

    Once they bring up I.Q. issue, any way they slice it, they lose. Hence, “Bring it on!”

  5. I think he needs to caption “oh snap” underneath his picture.

    It seems that the more educated one is the more likely it is that they own a firearm

    Title: Firearm ownership in households with children.

    “RESULTS: Firearm ownership was 54% in rural locations, versus 18% among inner-city residents (P< .05). Firearm ownership in white households was 45% versus 20% in African-American households (P< .05). Mean number of all types of firearms in white households was 3.38 versus 1.78 in black households (P< .001). Firearm ownership was 19% in the less than $20,000 income bracket, significantly lower than households with greater incomes, and was significantly lower in households in which parents had the least education (19.7%) versus those with college degrees (38.5%; P< .05). Firearm owners of rifles and shotguns significantly more often cited hunting, collection, and target shooting as reasons for owning firearms, in contrast to revolver owners who cited protection and collection as reasons for firearm ownership (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Firearm ownership is higher in rural, caucasian versus inner-city African-American residents and is significantly less in households with lower income and educational levels. Significant predictors for firearm ownership were number of parents in households, educational level of parents, and population of residence.

    Article: http://www.jpedsurg.org/article/S0022-3468%2898%2990322-0/abstract

  6. Mr. Huffman,

    That is true. But I’m not sure that arguing it that way will “work” in the sense of convincing people that they are wrong. The cleverer ones at Brady Inc. (a few have to be above average…) will proceed to commission and manipulate a counter-study showing the opposite conclusion, which will lead to more the same sort of non-arguments and logical fallacies we already have to deal with regarding “gun crime rates” and other such bogus statistics that ignore total crime rates, etc. Which would be fine, except that kind of stuff does seem to convince a lot of people to go over to the banners’ side of the aisle.

  7. Joe, thanks for the quote! To be perfectly honest, that’s the best way I can describe the reaction an anti gets when confronted with the fallacy of their arguments. Especially when confronted with your ‘Just One Question’.

    I read the blog in question, and the answers provided by the various bloggers who responded via comments or on their own blogs.

    My only explanation is they suffer from a self inflicted case of ‘ADOS’: Attention Deficit, Oh Shiny.

    It’s not that we don’t get where she’s coming from, it’ that she doesn’t get where we’re coming from. And in some cases, I don’t think SHE even knew where she was coming from.

    Funny, our ‘peer reviewed studies’ come from sources like the CDC, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, and other government backed/funded studies, not including John Lott and Barry Kleck, yet their ‘peer reviewed studies’ are google searches and a crooked mayor with an in-your-face agenda and a penchant for breaking federal law to make his point.

  8. Heinlein wrote that a good touchstone as to someone’s mental acuity might be whether they accept the validity of natal horoscopy.

    I might propose the corollary that a good test of someone’s intelligence might be his readiness to accept the viability of collectivist or statist public policy prescriptions — including ad hoc limits placed on individual liberty.

    M

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