A relative of mine is an interesting character. He lives in a purple state. He’s a natural comedian. He hates Trump, but he was temporarily sold on Robert Kennedy Jr. for President. And he owns handguns.
Here is a summary of a dialogue we shared recently. I’m going to set my responses in DK quote format for easier readability here, but both sides are pretty much direct quotes.
Rel: This guy (...Ring camera photo not shared in this diary) tried to break into our house last year. He saw Ring and ADT signs and he didn’t care. What stopped him? Our security door — why? Because he knew by the time he broke through our door and tripped the alarm the cops would probably be there, and he’d be caught. So, the system worked, but guns are a last line of defense when the other systems don’t work.
Here’s the problem. They don’t care about the consequences of being caught. If they don’t care, a last line of defense is needed at home. You are dreaming if you believe your dog will stop someone in your home. These guys have guns too.
Me: There is a false narrative behind the rise of gun ownership. Burglaries, including smash and grab, are not violent. You don't need a gun to protect you from a burglar.
Red states have far worse rates of gun deaths.
Yes, the homeless and hungry don't care about property rights, but they don't endanger your life. Throw away the guns please.
(To DK readers — It was pretty obvious to me the guy in the photo didn’t have a gun. He didn’t look intense enough to be carrying around that much killing power. I also didn’t see any bulges in his front pockets or under his shirt.)
Rel: When a burglar breaks into your home one night — be sure to give those statistics to him. I’m not going to assume a late night break-in is anything but a life-threatening event and I’ll defend myself and what is mine at all costs. And there is a reason I own revolvers and not semi-automatic weapons. Less likely to make a mistake in firing.
Me: So to be clear, I didn’t advocate government confiscation of your handguns, and yes I would be terrified if burglar was inside my house. I just recommended that you toss them because they probably (yes, that’s statistics talking) aren’t needed. And frankly, when more people believe valid statistics instead of Christmas Cards with smiling children holding AR15s, the nation will be a better place.
By the way, risk (aka level of danger) is the mathematical product of (a) likelihood and (b) severity of a negative outcome. But each person calibrates those parameters differently. Some people think skydiving is not very risky and others think leaving their house is too risky.
So we can have a plethora of different opinions about what is or isn't dangerous in our country without forcing people to do something they are not comfortable with (or refrain from something that’s not illegal, if they are comfortable).
But it's also okay to help educate people whose negative perceptions are so out of proportion to the actual risk, that their behaviors become unhealthy or even deadly.
Rel: When liberals successfully round up all the gangs’ and other bad guys’ guns, I’ll turn over mine.
Some questions for DK readers —
- Is it worth my time to keep dialoguing with this relative?
- I think yes. I think I may have planted a few seeds in his mind, such that he might not share his opinions as readily or enthusiastically to someone else who is on the cusp of buying a gun.
- And based on prior conversations, I think he is very concerned about accidents in the home (e.g., accidentally shooting a loved one or a pet).
- Also, I think my urgent and rigorous critique of Kennedy Jr. may have helped him flip to being less enamored by him.
- How do reasonable people talk rabid gun owners down from their precipice so we don’t have any more murders of innocent teenagers who knocked on the wrong door hoping to pick up a younger sibling?
- I can’t think of anyone I know who is that far down the road of paranoia, but if I did, I’d probably try to dig deeper to determine whether they actually have some trauma in their history, or they are just willingly ignorant about the BS they hear on Fox News. I didn’t ask my relative what news channel he watches.
- I wonder how much racism is at the root of this irrational fear of burglars who supposedly carry and use guns. I didn’t probe that with my relative.
- How do we argue against the whataboutism that ended his half of the dialog?
- Guns are a deeply emotional issue for people on both sides — the right vs the left, but also the fearful vs the mourning.
- What debate techniques are the most productive against whataboutism? Would Ronald Reagan’s “There you go again” (that he used very successfully in a debate against Walter Mondale) work?
- When will be be able to have hope that the destitute and unhoused segments of our society will start to feel less estranged and will want to abide by the social contract that “we the fortunate” find so reasonable?
- Does our younger generation understand the yin and yang of the philosophical issues that were written about so vigorously by Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and others 3+ centuries ago?
- Do they agree that all of us are created equal, and have unalienable rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How do they feel about property rights (which Jefferson purposely omitted from the Declaration)?
- Can we give them a bit more hope about the future before we leave the planet?