Debate about Gun Control

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-07-2016, 05:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-07-2016, 03:32 PM)Odin Wrote: I see Playwrite has decided to play the classic authoritarian gambit of politicizing tragedies in order to silence opposition.   

Playwrite, you are officially no better than the Neocons who used 9/11 to force through the USA PATRIOT Act and the Islamophobes like Trump who use the Orlando Massacre to promote their "deport all Muslims" bile. You have no fucking shame.

I'm not sure any of us can claim to be better or worse than playwrite, or that anyone else is better or worse than anyone else, for that matter.

I'd be pleased if we could manage to move in that direction.  Still, if I'm going to be called ammosexual and a narcissist, it seems that someone thinks he is better than me.  I don't care for ad-hominum attacks, strawman arguments and insult based debate.  I don't want a lot of talk about building a ranking system saying who is better or worse than who.  I would like talk about what behavior is acceptable, and agreements to avoid it.

Bottom line, let's talk more about issues, less about the alleged character flaws of people one disagrees with.

I don't see politicizing tragedies as uniquely authoritarian.  The over all point is valid enough, but I don't know that bringing in the 'authoritarian' label makes it clearer.  

Politicizing tragedy is traditional in gun policy debate.  If there is a shooting, some will ask what would happen if the shooter was prevented from having a gun, and some others will ask how many lives would have been saved if the good guys had more guns immediately available.  Nothing new about that.  I think the prohibition crowd is a bit more blatant about exploiting tragedy.  I expect Obama and Hillary to be making a spiel after every spree shooting event.  Still, both factions do it.  The NRA pushes their fair share of propaganda as well.

There are lots of angles to the gun policy debate.  One might look at the wording of the law, the intent of the authors, the court precedents, academic analysis, crime statistics and so much else.  Some of these areas can be well researched and known.  Other's can't.  The results are often so murky and questionable that you see no meaningful resolution.  I think throwing up tragic incidents with accompanying opinions on what could have happened given a policy change is as futile and indecisive a form of discussion as any.  Too many stories, and many of them can be spun either way.

But if the point of the discussion is to reduce the number of tragedies, how can we totally avoid the politicizing of tragedies?

This is becoming less about gun policy and more about various posters attacking one another.  What forms of personal attack are palatable?  Perhaps...  None?  Perhaps parts of this discussion belong on a thread about internet etiquette and forum moderation?  Dan's call, though.  I'd say not yet.