Gun Logic 101: "As a touchstone, let's change the subject and see how stupid it sounds". [View all]

Ok, so I ran across this post in an OP about Zimmerman's being allowed to keep his gun, and his attempt to auction it off to the highest racist gunhumping bidder.

Now, being that this OP was started in the gungeon, and given the high level of support that Zimmerman has in that particular DU group, it is hardly surprising that Zimmerman found some support for his murder of Trayvon Martin over there in that thread.

But that is not what this OP is about.

This OP is about a much more mundane comment that just happened to appear in that thread, and one that we have all seen on countless occasions in multiple threads relating to guns, and which seems by its repetition to be a fundamental part of Gun Logic 101.

And it has to do with how stupid many reasonable sounding comments about guns seem when you change the subject to something else.

And how stupid many reasonable sounding comments about other stuff seems when you change the topic to guns.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172193683#post38

Ok, how does this work?

First, one takes a perfectly reasonable sounding statement about Gun Rites, such as this one:

"Zimmerman should be in jail for gunstalking and murdering Trayvon Martin, and, failing that, he should certainly have his guns taken away."

Then one performs the Magical Gun Logic Transformation to the statement, and constructs a similar statement, not about guns, but about free speech instead:

"Zimmerman should be in jail for having a conversation with Trayvon Martin, and, failing that, he should certainly have his mouth taped shut and not be allowed to speak any more."

Note how stupid the statement seems after the Magical Gun Logic Transformation has been applied to turn the statement about guns into a statement about free speech.

After all, It was just a conversation. And Trayvon is still alive. So what's the big deal?

The Magical Gun Logic Transformation can also be used in the opposite direction to turn perfectly reasonable sounding statements about other stuff into rather stupid sounding statements about guns.

For example, consider the following perfectly reasonable sounding statement regarding the Right to Vote:

"George Zimmerman should be allowed to vote for the candidate of his choice from his prison cell, since the right to vote is a basic and fundamental human and civil right".

A simple application of the Magical Gun Logic Transformation turns this reasonable sounding statement about the Right to Vote into the following absurdity about Gun Rites:

"George Zimmerman should be allowed the semi-automatic weapon of his choice in his prison cell, since the right to guns is a basic and fundamental human and civil right".

Remember, when folks say reasonable stuff about guns, the Magical Gun Logic Transformation can be used to change the subject to something else and make their statements appear stupid in the new contest.

And it can be used to take perfectly reasonable statements about other stuff and change the topic to guns to make the statement sound stupid in the new context.