I try to rely upon a combination of personal experience, logical deduction and inference and expert analysis. My intuition tells me that there is no way in hell that airplanes can possibly stay up in the air. However, I understand the physics behind it and trust the physics because of the repeated success of those theories and their proven track record. And I've seen a number of planes up in the air and they seem to stay up there more often than they fall out of the sky. So in spite of my extreme misgivings, I've gotten on planes before and, thus far, they've worked. So my intuition has been replaced by my faith in expertise of others which has given way to some modicum of personal experience that, thankfully, supports the experts and works against my intuition. Planes still don't seem right though.
As for gun control, I'm not (currently) arguing in favor of gun control. I just felt that your analogy with vehicle deaths is weak, I don't feel they cover the same ground at all and really can't usefully be compared. I do think you are right, however, that if we had fewer cars we'd have fewer vehicular deaths. The same is true for guns, logically speaking. If there are fewer guns, there likely will be fewer deaths associated with guns. Pretty much trivially true from a statistical standpoint. So your point, I would say, isn't so much about the number of deaths associated with guns but rather the social issues around who has the guns. That's a valid point of discussion, for sure, but it doesn't mean there wouldn't be fewer gun-related deaths if there were fewer guns in the US. Just means that the fewer number of guns may be distributed, population-wise, in a fashion that concerns you. Different argument, I think. Judah On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Scott Stroz <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanx for looking out! > > My problem with most gun control measures I have read is that they > only seem to make it difficult for law abiding citizens to get fire > arms. If something comes along that will make it more difficult for > the criminals to get guns, I'd be all for it. > > In my defense, though, don't we all rely on personal experiences to > draw judgments? > > > On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 4:33 PM, Judah McAuley <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I'm not defending the NRA. I do not care for them. I also did not >> agree with Scott's analogy between vehicle deaths and gun deaths as >> you must have noticed. I do not, however, believe that Scott is >> anything like an NRA "parrot" as you called him and I do not see >> anything in his statements that shows him parroting anything. Quite >> the contrary, he is relying (perhaps too strongly) on his own >> experiences to draw his own judgements. That is the opposite of >> parroting, I'd say. >> >> Cheers, >> Judah >> > > > > -- > Scott Stroz > --------------- > You can make things happen, you can watch things happen or you can > wonder what the f*&k happened. - Cpt. Phil Harris > > http://xkcd.com/386/ > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:347510 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
