Gary L. Griffiths
New member
Philosophy professor Joseph Heath of the University of Toronto recently published a treatise "On the problem of normative sociology" in the Canadian Public Health Blog. I found it to be highly informative regarding the motivations of both sides of the debate which inevitably results from a highly publicized shooting incident.
Dr. Heath writes, "Often when we study social problems, there is an almost irresistible temptation to study what we would like the cause of those problems to be (for whatever reason), to the neglect of the actual causes. When this goes uncorrected, you can get the phenomenon of “politically correct” explanations for various social problems – where there’s no hard evidence that A actually causes B, but where people, for one reason or another, think that A ought to be the explanation for B. This can lead to a situation in which denying that A is the cause of B becomes morally stigmatized, and so people affirm the connection primarily because they feel obliged to, not because they’ve been persuaded by any evidence."
Thus we find that those who favor gun control to be convinced that the "cause" of the problem is unrestricted access to guns, and anyone holding a conflicting opinion is a reprehensible troglodyte. On the other hand, we in the "Gunny" community are convinced that armed citizens are the answer to mass shootings, when in reality most of the time all they can do is lower the casualty count. While the latter is a worthy goal in itself, it often can't prevent the shooter from injuring or killing anyone except himself.
I would recommend that those interested in a greater insight into anti-gun thinking, read Dr. Heath's article in its entirety. It may be found at: http://induecourse.ca/on-the-problem-of-normative-sociology/
Interestingly, I stumbled onto Dr. Heath's work from a blog article on The Economist website. It argues the interesting precept that while lax gun laws may cause mass shootings (wrong - psychopaths cause mass shootings) mass shootings may in turn cause lax gun laws, as more people desire to acquire guns for protection from such events. This article is at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/06/mass-shootings-and-gun-control
Dr. Heath writes, "Often when we study social problems, there is an almost irresistible temptation to study what we would like the cause of those problems to be (for whatever reason), to the neglect of the actual causes. When this goes uncorrected, you can get the phenomenon of “politically correct” explanations for various social problems – where there’s no hard evidence that A actually causes B, but where people, for one reason or another, think that A ought to be the explanation for B. This can lead to a situation in which denying that A is the cause of B becomes morally stigmatized, and so people affirm the connection primarily because they feel obliged to, not because they’ve been persuaded by any evidence."
Thus we find that those who favor gun control to be convinced that the "cause" of the problem is unrestricted access to guns, and anyone holding a conflicting opinion is a reprehensible troglodyte. On the other hand, we in the "Gunny" community are convinced that armed citizens are the answer to mass shootings, when in reality most of the time all they can do is lower the casualty count. While the latter is a worthy goal in itself, it often can't prevent the shooter from injuring or killing anyone except himself.
I would recommend that those interested in a greater insight into anti-gun thinking, read Dr. Heath's article in its entirety. It may be found at: http://induecourse.ca/on-the-problem-of-normative-sociology/
Interestingly, I stumbled onto Dr. Heath's work from a blog article on The Economist website. It argues the interesting precept that while lax gun laws may cause mass shootings (wrong - psychopaths cause mass shootings) mass shootings may in turn cause lax gun laws, as more people desire to acquire guns for protection from such events. This article is at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/06/mass-shootings-and-gun-control