A sure sign that a topic of public conversation has been poisoned by propaganda is that everyone in the conversation keeps using the same terminology, the same logical structure, and comes to the same predictable conclusions. What should be obvious alternative realms of possibilities somehow don’t occur to a single participant in the eerie Kabuki play gone viral. Propaganda’s structure reprograms infected brains to loop forever, safe from the upset of aha moments.
It’s not easy to find a better illustrative example of this phenomenon than the strangely constricted conversation about gun violence. Gun apologists long ago cemented the language to be used always in any discussion of what to do about gun violence. They set up false dichotomies that guarantee there can be no successful argument against gun possession.
False dichotomy #1 makes it appear that we can either have tens of thousands of gun deaths every year, or else a gun ban. Of course, a moment’s thought makes it clear that a gun ban is out of the question. There are constitutional issues, there are already over 300 million guns in this country, there is a pipeline for guns greater than the one for drugs, there’s no way of collecting 300 million guns from hidden stashes guarded by fanatics. Ergo, we have to accept tens of thousands of gun deaths a year. That’s the way the argument is set up to play out.
False dichotomy #2 says that we can either have tens of thousands of gun deaths every year, or else have background checks. What would background checks accomplish? Is the person who was arrested in a peaceful protest years ago to be denied constitutionally guaranteed rights? Umm, probably not. Ergo, we have to accept tens of thousands of gun deaths a year. That’s the way the argument was set up to play out.
False dichotomy #3 says that we can either have tens of thousands of gun deaths every year, or do mental health screenings on gun buyers. Now, any worthwhile- underline worthwhile- screening would require days of testing and evaluation by professionals. Multiplied by a million or so buyers each year, this would cost about as much as the Pentagon’s budget. Ergo, we have to accept tens of thousands of gun deaths a year. That’s the way the argument was set up to play out.
Try to get anyone, anywhere, to talk along different lines, and the hairs on the back of your neck will rise as you see that circling arrow in their blank stares….
Reboot, reboot…. Oh, of course, it’s so clear now: There have long been laws regulating the use of guns, laws that have never been struck down.
- Mandatory extra jail time when a gun is used in the commission of a crime
- Guidelines for adjudicating malicious intent in the use of a gun
- Punishments up to life in prison for repeat offenders using a gun in the commission of a crime
- And reams of legal paper more
It’s easy enough to expand the existing laws to the point that having a gun becomes about as risky as the paranoid fear of others makes not having a gun, because any use of a gun to hurt an innocent, or to menace one, could put the gun owner away for longer than he considers worth the risk.
So, gun people, you can blow your savings on a roomful of guns, you can strut through a Stop ‘n’ Shop with a small arsenal strapped to you, or a school or a church or the Capitol Building, if you really, really must. But if you ever shoot anyone, without ironclad proof that this shooting was the last resort to save your life or a family member, you’re done, you’re in prison pretty much forever. End of story. You brought this on yourselves. Just accept this compromise- yes, compromise- or we’ll have to get serious.
And this time our mental firewalls will be impervious to your malware.