> I would suggest if you already have strong belief's about the value of
> gun control laws, your opinion on the issue is unlikely to be swayed by
> statistical studies counter to your belief, regardless of the quality of
> the study.
I would tend to agree. If I might put it another way, suppose you are a
libertarian. You believe guns don't commit crime: criminals do. You see
gun laws as another set of consentual crime laws that will increase crime
while they themselves are doomed to failure. You refer to government gun
control as "gun prohibition," and you're dead-set against it.
Also suppose that I could prove indisputably that more guns in the hands
of responsible citizens results in more violent crime.
Would you change your views?
If you're like most people, probably not. You might reason that, even if
violent crime increases across the population, it will surely decrease
within your own home (after you buy that gun you've been meaning to get),
and so that's a good thing. You might reason that gun prohibition is the
first step to tyranny, and cite a dozen historical precedents, and
conclude that a little violent crime is one of the necessary costs of a
free society. Or you might use any of a number of other arguments. In
short, you might change your reasoning, but you probably wouldn't change
your views.
Same story, reverse situation.
I've found that the only way to influence a person's view is to speak to
him in terms that he can understand and demonstrate to him that my
solution addresses his personal concerns.
-TimK
--
Libertarians support free speech
... free religion
... free lives
