How to Effectively Argue, Part 3

 

This is the third article in an eight part series that is intended to help our readership understand and engage in modern logic and debate techniques

So far the Moose Droppings has tackled the issues of racism and misogyny. This week we take a gander at the most vulnerable group in society, our children. What reader of this fine newspaper wouldn’t want to do anything and everything to ensure the health and safety of our county’s children?

Continuing with last issue’s analogy, let’s assume that Larry Irate has written another op-ed condemning the NRA for enabling mass shooters with its unrelenting promotion of the ownership of assault rifles, and that the NRA should be disbanded and all of its members sent to reeducation camps. Further, no one needs an AK15 with clipazines for duck hunting, except maybe the police and military, because they are the only trained duck hunters in the country.

One could respond once again with the scholarly history of the 2nd amendment, explain the supreme court’s rulings, detail how police use these modern tools for defensive purposes just as law abiding citizens do, and elaborate on the concepts of individual intent, personal responsibility, and freedom. However, a more effective argument can be made as follows:

First explain that actual mass shooting deaths are extremely low and rare as compared to all other murders, regardless of method. Further explain that even more children perish from drownings, and especially from automobile related fatalities. Then demand that Mr. Irate relinquish all swimming pools, usage of any bodies of water of any kind, and most importantly turn in his murderous vehicle of mass destruction. 

Lastly, and even more importantly, in all caps type IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN, IF IT ONLY SAVE ONE LIFE…… Infalible emotional pleas such as these will always trump reason and logic, and if Mr. Irate truly cared about the children and doing the most good, he would comply with these common sense first steps.