"Noah Simoneaux" wrote in message
...

When I first saw that statement the first thing that occurred to me was
that it
wasn't quite true. There is NO state in the US where just ANYBODY can go
buy a
gun. Minors can't(legally), people who have been disqualified for several
reasons (felons, those adjudged as dangers to society because of mental
illness,
people with restraining orders against them) can't do it legally either.

Good point. I mention that in another message in this thread which requires
an especially tedious response, which I haven't posted yet.


That's really the question here, because, as several people have pointed
out
in this thread, there isn't much question about what "Ford" intended by
his
statistic. To assume otherwise is to assume that he was talking about
something else when he called those people "crazy" who didn't have his
penetrating insight -- aided by his bogus statistic, of course. g
That's
always a possibility but then we'd want to know how people understand the
meaning of the assertion.

That's always a problem, because people don't "always" say what they mean
or
mean what they say. Added to that is the "Inferring what others imply"
problem,
too. Seeing through all those filters is difficult, if not impossible.

Sometimes it's obvious by the tone of voice, the argumentative structure of
it (calling anyone who doesn't see the "obvious" conclusion, crazy), or
sometimes just knowing it's part of a continuing, one-sided argument and
inferring the intention by context...like Gunner's arguments. g

I would never guess that Gunner hoisted this quotation for the purpose of
showing that "Ford" really is a fool. Nor do I think that "Ford" meant to
say that counting states, which can have varying populations, and relating
them to absolute numbers of murders, which vary among states, is an obvious
syllogistic error (Illicit Minor) and that the reader is supposed to take it
all as a joke.

One thing I always try to keep in mind is the list of logical fallacies
people
often employ. Once you spot them, it's pretty easy to figure out what's
being
attempted.

I hope then that you spotted Illicit Minor. It takes a pretty slick
propagandist to plug one of those into an argument without catching catcalls
and a few Bronx cheers, but stupid people tend to do it without even trying.
I kind of doubt that "Ford" is stupid, but you never know. On the other
hand, True Believers tend to not notice them if they appear to favor their
side of an issue.

And that's what we have he a lot of otherwise smart people who are
willing to suspend critical judgment in order to defend a point that favors
their side. Notice, too, that a couple of them have defended "Ford's" point
even while acknowledging that the substance of it -- his specific claim --
is not correct. In that kind of environment it's not easy to stick to the
facts and avoid distractions and side arguments, like the ones Gunner and a
couple of others have presented here in the last few hours.

But none of that noise obstructs the basic truth here -- the important and
relevant one in regard to "Ford's" original claim -- that the logic of his
statement falls into a class of logical fallacies that is used as a tool of
propaganda. Beyond that, I'll argue his number, too, but that's really a
minor point to the argument itself.

--
Ed Huntress
(remove "3" from email address for email reply)