A lesson in logic
I saw this gun control meme the other day. We shall call it the “kid on the playground” argument. It’s meant to be a rebuttal of the gun rights argument, “Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun.” What do you think? Is it a valid rebuttal? The “kid on the playground argument” is an argument from analogy, comparing one situation to another. But it fails in a number of ways. An argument from analogy is only effective if the two things being compared are similar in their most essential points. But this is not the case with the “kid on the playground” argument and the “good guy with a gun” argument. First, a kid on the playground throwing rocks is not very similar to a man firing a gun in terms of their effects . We’re comparing cuts and bruises to lethal wounds. This is a fatal flaw in the analogy. But there is more. In the “good guy with a gun” argument, there is no one analogous to the teacher in the “kid on the playground” argument. There is no one who g