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I just read "Is 'guns don't kill people people kill people' a good argument?" and it reminds me of another argument. I would like your opinion on whether or not it is a good argument.
Gun Control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.
I don't know whether this argument was used in the US Congress or anything similar (maybe it should be), but I am interested in finding out whether this argument is valid.
Are these two concepts comparable?
I'm going to have to disagree with Chris.
Any analogy is going to rely - to one extent or another - on the background knowledge of the audience it's being presented to.
In this particular analogy, it relies on the audience knowing what guns are, that there is already legislation in place controlling them, that some people violate this legislation, and that they are proposing more legislation to restrict access to them.
It also relies on the audience knowing what cars are, that there are laws in place specifying who can drive and what is acceptable, and that there are those that violate these laws.
Since Chris did a good job of defining what the argument here actually is I am going to borrow that from him.
Gun control IS TO reducing deaths from gun violence AS making it harder for sober people to own cars IS TO reducing deaths from drunk driving.
However as we can see from the assumed background knowledge of our audience, they know that there are laws in place affecting the use of both cars and guns. Which means that we do have an analogous person on the gun side for our sober person, and heres why.
When we say sober person, we really mean law abiding person since the law specifically states that you must be sober to operate a car. So a law abiding gun owner is, (i.e. someone who does not commit gun violence) in this analogy, equal to a law abiding (sober) car driver.
The next piece from Chris's response I want to tackle is this:
This still has the issue however of the "drunk" stipulation on the right. Again, there's no obvious analog on the left, and again there's an illegitimate implication (that all gun deaths are results of the same type of flagrant misuse of guns as drunk driving is a flagrant misuse of a car)."
The fallacy here again goes back to background knowledge and the fact that the audience knows that gun control is an issue because of the violence for which guns are used.
Which means that it is specifically the "flagrant misuse of guns" that is at issue here.
Since our person being discussed on both sides is a law abiding person, and the issue at hand is the breaking of laws ie: a person committing gun violence, or a person driving drunk, then accidents must of necessity be taken out of the equation since accidents happen with both cars and guns.
With accidents dismissed from the equation and our background knowledge established what our argument is really trying to say is that:
Restricting law abiding citizens from owning guns to prevent gun violence is like restricting law abiding citizens from owning cars to prevent drunk driving.
Which is an effective statement of absurdity, clearly laying out the anti-gun control point of view. But also a statement that could - with enough research - be verified as true or false. Which to me says that it is a highly effective analogy.
(Interesting note almost as many people die in car accidents as are killed with guns in the US each year, while gun accidents are in most years under 1000 deaths.)
DISCLAIMER: I neither endorse or denounce gun control, that is not what this question is about; it is about the effectiveness of a particular analogy and so my response digs into the reason I think the analogy is either good or bad. NOT wether gun control is good or bad. Also thanks Chris for giving me such a wonderful backdrop from which I could place my arguments against. +1.
The implicit crux of the analogy is that Gun Control only affects law-abiding citizens. The idea is that law abiding people don't misuse guns, the same way that sober people don't drunk-drive. Meanwhile, criminal elements will continue to obtain and use guns, so if the problem with gun violence is from criminal elements, making it harder to have guns won't fix anything.
It seems like the analogy is easily confused, so while the point behind it might be valid (some will agree, some won't), the analogy itself is unlikely to convince anyone who disagrees with it.
This is basically an analogy of the form
Gun control IS TO reducing deaths from gun violence AS making it harder for sober people to own cars IS TO reducing deaths from drunk driving.
So whether or not the analogy is good depends on how closely the parts match. As it stands, the biggest mismatch is the "sober" on the right side, which has no natural counterpart on the left. Thus this version of the analogy implies that everyone who would be affected by gun control would be an analog of a "sober" person --i.e. someone with no inclinations towards gun violence. This is probably not supportable, and it also has the issue that it also has questionable implications on the right: i.e. that "soberness" is a stable permanent category, instead of a transitory state of being.
If you clear out the word sober, the analogy is immediately much better. It now reads
Gun control: reducing gun deaths :: making it harder to own cars : drunk driving deaths
This still has the issue however of the "drunk" stipulation on the right. Again, there's no obvious analog on the left, and again there's an illegitimate implication (that all gun deaths are results of the same type of flagrant misuse of guns as drunk driving is a flagrant misuse of a car).
So we can clean the analogy again and yield
Gun control: reducing gun deaths :: making it harder to own cars : reducing car deaths
This is arguably a decent analogy, but it cuts both ways. On the one hand, we don't eliminate car ownership because people get in accidents. On the other hand, car ownership actually is controlled fairly extensively.
There are other potential disagreements with this analogy over whether or not cars and guns are actually comparable, given their contrasting usage and purposes, but this takes care of all the intrinsic structural weaknesses.
taking Guns from Law abiding citizens to prevent Gun violence is like making it harder for non-alcoholics to buy a car or something to that effect. but then it doesn't give the same bite as the original statement.
– Malachi
May 1 '14 at 14:20
Gun Control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.
From a UK perspective, where we have tight gun control, "Gun Control" effectively means a system to prevent anyone demonstrating certain indicators which may make them more likely to misuse a gun. These indicators are usually held to be a violent and / or criminal past, any involvement with drugs and certain mental health problems where it is felt the risk of future violence is increased (such as depression).
Applying the same rationale to car ownership would mean preventing anyone where there is a high probability that someone may misuse their car. So, that might also include preventing the legal ownership of a car if you've had a history of drinking and / or substance abuse or a criminal record involving vehicles in some way.
So applying the same precondition could make it more difficult for some (sober) people to own cars. For example, someone who's used a car in a ram-raid (robbery) would not be allowed to own one in the future.
So the analogy is true?
Essentially yes, but it is more accurate to state the analogy as @Tracy Cramer did on her answer:
Restricting citizens with mental illness from owning guns to prevent gun violence is like restricting citizens with known drinking problems from owning cars to prevent drunk driving.
Which seems fairly logical...
What the argument is trying to imply is that gun control unfairly restricts responsible, law-abiding people from owning guns. Again, from a UK perspective this isn't really true.
What the argument alludes to is that any restrictions on people that are law-abiding etc. doesn't have any impact on the people that are not. For example, if you stopped sober people from owning cars, but still allowed drunk people to own them, you're unlikely to prevent many incidents of drunk driving.
The gun control argument is trying to highlight that preventing violent criminals from owning guns should be the priority, as they're the ones most likely to commit gun violence.
However, in both cases, whether you have a history of drinking or violence, this doesn't preclude the people who have no prior history from misusing their car / gun in the future. That's another debate entirely.
* To be clear, I'm not siding on one side or another of the debate, just the merits of the argument referred to by the OP **
I like the arguments made by both Chris and Ryan but would like to add another dimension to the argument that I think is missing. As is usually the case with complex issues, attempting to break it down to a simple soundbite does a disservice to the reality.
Gun control is multifaceted so the argument does depend on which piece of 'gun control' you are arguing. If you are talking about registration and waiting periods I think the statement generally holds, but if you are talking about past indicators I do not think it does - and "gun control" does include both types of legislation.
Using Ryan's statement above with a focus on the latter type of gun control yields:
Restricting citizens with mental illness from owning guns to prevent gun violence is like restricting citizens with known drinking problems from owning cars to prevent drunk driving.
People with known drinking problems can also be sober so I believe it is a relevant point. Note that you can lose your drivers license for public intoxication in some states, for boating and flying while intoxicated and other reasons. While that doesn't prevent people from owning cars, it would be illegal to drive them.
In a debate, clarifying the type of gun control can help make the argument stronger, imho.
That being said, and regarding your question 'are they comparable', I believe there are other drawbacks to the argument such that I personally would not use it in a debate with someone even with stipulations on the type of gun control being discussed. There are competency tests for driving a car and strong penalties for accidents while the standards for owning a gun and having an accident are in some cases less. To cite a widely known example of misusing a gun, Dick Cheney was not penalized (to my knowledge) for shooting Harry Whittington (perhaps because he was vice president). Would the outcome have been different if he had caused a crash with injury with his car? Usually when someone causes a crash they are ticketed, fined and their insurance can go up depending on the circumstances. I haven't seen that type of enforcement and penalties with gun ownership. So the comparison isn't as apples to apples as it might be inferred from the one line argument.
Please don't try to infer my stance on the issue based on this answer. :)
The better argument would be to compare a ban on alcohol. This argument is appealing to a cost/benefit analysis, however cars have far, FAR more benefit than either guns or alcohol. It would require far more harm to be done by cars to justify removing them because of the amount of good they also do.
Guns are not without their advantages (most notably, hunting provides food and other resources, as well as arguably defense) and alcohol itself has very little real advantage beyond the recreational purposes (which guns also have). They are much more comparable than creating an unbalanced equation with cars which may have the same cost but provide far greater value.
That said, you may still be able to make the car analogy work by removing drunk driving from it entirely and simply looking at the total human life cost associated with driving in general. I suspect it still isn't as favorable as using alcohol as your alternative and focusing on drunk driving, but I couldn't tell you for certain without looking more in depth at statistics.
I suppose we could start simply by assuming that the statement is true on its face value. So, if "Gun Control" really is like "trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars", I have to wonder if there have ever been any serious efforts to reduce drunk driving by "making it tougher for sober people to own cars". Personally, I'm not aware of any; but I'd accept that such efforts could be identified somewhere and sometime.
What seems difficult is to identify any such efforts that had actually succeeded at making it "tougher for sober people to own cars".
If it's hard to find efforts "to make it tougher...", and if such efforts had only minor or obscure effects, then the argument is that gun control would have minor and obscure effects. In short, it's not something to be very concerned about. If it's true, apparently we can mostly ignore gun control.
But there are other problems that have been noted. E.g., ownership of a car is almost never restricted at all (except for limited areas such as ownership of titled property by minors, etc.) Even driving is only restricted when it's done on public roadways or areas of general public access. There are few, isolated circumstances when driving entirely on your own private property is restricted in any way.
Perhaps most importantly, gun ownership is a Constitutionally protected right in the U.S.A., while driving on public roadways is long established as a granted privilege. All kinds of laws could be passed that could affect car ownership by sober drivers. It's almost guaranteed that a couple appropriate laws could be described that could nearly eliminate drunk-driving. It's just as much guaranteed that the public wouldn't put up with such laws, so they'll never be passed or they'll quickly be challenged in court and invalidated.
Yet, it's theoretically possible to tackle drunk driving in that way and to pretty much eliminate it (assuming no significant public opposition.)
From that perspective, maybe the argument means that we could tackle problems related to gun ownership just as well as we could tackle drunk driving if we really wanted to. Both problems could be greatly reduced if the general public simply gave its support.
If I run across the argument, I'll probably respond from the "it's true" perspective. ("Really? You think we could reduce gun problems as easily as that? Then I'm with you in supporting gun control.")
Gun Control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.
The basic idea is (thanks James!): gun control primarily affects law-abiding citizens, who don't misuse them, in the same way that non-drinking-people-car-ownership control primarily affects people who don't drunk-drive.
But the argument itself is flawed in a few ways:
"Sober" is an incorrect analogy to "law-abiding".
Sobriety is a short-term measurable state - it says nothing of your previous or future drunkenness.
A criminal record is something that's measurable (and presumably a lot more efficient than testing sobriety while buying a car), but there are plenty of criminals who don't have criminal records.
There's (often) nothing wrong with getting drunk, in itself. Legally speaking, that is.
The presumable main reason for gun control is to stop those with illegal intent ('criminals') from using it against innocents.
Getting drunk definitely doesn't imply illegal intent or an intent to drive drunk.
Drunk driving accidents are usually 'accidental', while most gun-related deaths or injuries are presumed intentional.
Most drunk driving accidents presumably don't come about from some drunk person saying "I'm going to get in my car now and go kill someone".
Someone stealing a car just to drunk-drive isn't the same as someone stealing a gun to shoot someone.
If the sober / law-abiding can own cars / guns, but the drunk / criminals can't, presumably there's a risk of the car / gun of a sober / law-abiding citizen getting stolen by a drunk / criminal.
Legally speaking, stealing a car is worse than drunk-driving, but shooting someone / armed robbery is worse than stealing a gun.
So, if you're planning to use a gun to shoot someone or commit armed robbery, starting off by stealing a gun doesn't add a whole lot to your crime.
Conversely, stealing a car to drunk-drive is a lot worse than just drunk-driving. Admittedly one's judgement is impaired while drunk, but presumably few would go to the extent of stealing a car.
I'm not talking about causing an accident while driving drunk, but again it goes back to intent - it's unlikely that such an accident was planned.
Cars are 'better' than guns.
Intuitively speaking, I'd say the ratio of legal to illegal car use is a lot higher than the ratio of legal to illegal gun use. Keep in mind that legal car use includes any instance of driving from point A to point B.
I'll replace illegal use with accidents or injuries, as these statistics are easier to come by, and that argument might be more correct.
Car accidents in the US are ~6.5 million (bad reference, I know) for ~300 million people, which is roughly 22 accidents / 1000 people. There are roughly ~800 vehicles per 1000 people in the US. Let's make a rough estimate and say that only about 1/8 of those are in operation every second day. That's ~50 uses per day per 1000 people, which is 18250 uses per year per 1000 people. So the ratio of legal car usages to accidents are 18250:22 or 829:1.
Comparing this to gun use:
Let's say defensive gun uses are at ~2 million per year (in the US, I assume). Accidents? Let's say ~100 000 in the US (based on this). So that's 2 million:100 000, or 20:1.
I think the difference between 829:1 and 20:1 is pretty conclusive.
Note that I was taking into account any vehicle accidents, not just drunk driving - just drunk driving would make even more conclusive stats.
I was ignoring gun uses for hunting and target shooting because I couldn't find stats for those, but I doubt that will be much more than the number of defensive gun uses, not to mention that car usage can typically be considered more necessary than gun usage for this purpose (i.e. recreationally).
Owning a gun can be detrimental to you, even if you don't use it for criminal purposes.
Sure, owning a car (or really anything of value) can get you carjacked, but a more accurate analogy to someone taking your gun and shooting you (and/or using it as a threat to rob you) would be someone taking your car and then using it to run you over (and/or rob you) - possible, but not particularly likely.
I'd like to address my take on the thorough answer that ryan posted.
While I agree that the two statements can be determined to make an analogy (and I agree with ryan's answer on the majority of points that he made, I personally don't believe it is a very effective one.
I'd like to emphasize that the general impact on society of restricting the use of cars would be larger than the impact of restricting guns.
Specifically excerpt from ryan's answer states:
Restricting law abiding citizens from owning guns to prevent gun violence is like restricting law abiding citizens from owning cars to prevent drunk driving. Which is an effective statement of absurdity, clearly laying out the anti-gun control point of view.
While I agree that the statement of restricting cars does indeed sound absurd, I understand that it sounds absurd only because cars are used very widely and frequently (most people who own cars use them daily). Cars are an effective utility we can use to improve our mobility and thus increase our efficiency and productiveness.
I do not believe (or I am not aware of, in which case please correct me) that there are many uses for a person to wield a gun on a daily basis.
Particularly the ones that come to mind are defensive gun use in case of break-ins or mugging for example and perhaps a sense of security a gun implies.
I don't believe that an average person is getting mugged/robbed at least once a month. Note that I'm making this assumption based on that I don't believe that the equation people-in-city divided by robberies-in-month will be equal to 1. In fact I'm pretty sure it'll be significantly smaller than 1. Which generally implies that for the average person the exceptional case when gun has a practical on-hands use is a lot less frequent than the practical on-hands use of a car on a daily basis.
As for the sense of security carrying a gun may imply, we could start a debate on whether people would feel a lot safer if everyone was carrying guns or nobody will carry guns. In fact I believe that people who carry guns for sense of security and are opposed to restrictions on guns simply do not trust the government enough to make their everyday life safe enough to not warrant carrying a gun making you feel safe. (And they could have a pretty valid point there.)
All in all, what I'm trying to convey here is that, while , yes I agree that these statements make an analogy, the fact that we use cars significantly more than we use guns, restriction on cars would have a much larger impact on the society than restriction of guns would have, thus the analogy maybe isn't as strong as it sounds at first glance.
As for making the analogies to nukes which appeared in the comments on ryan's answer, I'd have to again address the impact that restriction of nukes would have on society. As it is, I do not personally see any use of a nuke which would be benevolent or useful for an average person, thus the impact of restricting nukes for regular citizens has absolutely no impact, thus it is accepted without any opposition.
Although I'd imagine some mad scientist somewhere would object to this nuke daily usage ban wholeheartedly, but I doubt he has the best intentions in mind. ;)
I preface this post with the fact that I am a law abiding gun owner. I grew up with guns but have always wondered why we don't have more sensible gun laws. I have always liked this analogy because it can easily be turned against the gun control opponent. No, we do not take cars away from sober drivers. But there are things that we do for vehicles that we do not do for guns.
It's an analogy. Its not a very good argument depending what you are trying to argue...
Lets say its valid. So lets say it was impossible for a sober ( or drunk ) person to buy a car, basically the car market it gone, there are very few cars that can be acquired even though illegal means. Drunk driving deaths disappear. Same would happen for guns and gun death.
Great, problem solved! However the question is trying to be cunning because once you solve the problem, it seems silly to ban cars and trys to imply the same would be true of guns. But it actually makes a great argument, that yes!! banning cars and guns would very effectively get rid of deaths.
So basically the argument ends up "begging the question" of why one would allow either cars or guns. So if this argument is valid, it says yes we should ban both. However, are their any merits of owning cars or owning guns that counter act banning them altogether?
Vehicles and guns each cause a considerable number of deaths. Some of those deaths would be prevented by tightening regulations on who is allowed to own them, and therefore reducing the number of them in circulation.
In the case of vehicles there is a counter-argument against this restriction; it's a counter-argument that does not apply to guns: vehicles have a number of constructive uses; guns do not.
Guns exist to kill, hurt, and destroy their targets, whether those targets are human, animal, or inanimate objects. Guns do not advance our society. Restricting ownership of guns will not impede human progress.
Vehicles, are certainly not always used for especially constructive purposes, but they can be. Ambulances allow paramedics to save more lives; lorries can deliver construction materials for a new school being built; vans can distribute surplus food to shelters for the homeless.
Traffic is the number one cause of death for young people worldwide, so of course it would be good to see a reduction in car ownership and usage, and improvements in traffic safety. There seem to be more productive ways of going about that than restricting car ownership. Raising fuel prices, not so that they're prohibitively high, but enough to make people think about hopping on their bike, or a bus, instead of driving is a start. Improving urban planning so that people live closer to their places of work is another good idea. And of course, lowering speed limits. (The speed limit in my town was recently reduced from 30 to 20 miles per hour, and walking around town with the kids now feels a lot safer. The reduced noise from traffic has also been a welcome consequence.)
