One of the interesting pieces of backlash to the "March for
You ever notice how people in public life nicknamed, "Ted," wind up being shitbags? Cruz? Shitbag. Nugent? Child-molesting shitbag. Kennedy? Murdered a woman in a drunk-driving accident, and got away with it because of his last name. Shitbag. Roosevelt? Racist shitbag.
Caffeine hasn't kicked in yet. Sidetrack.
Anyway, there is a bar that needs to be cleared before I bother listening to/reading what a policy advocate has to say. The bar, for me, is rather high on pretty much any political or economic subject.
On September 11, 2001, four planes were hijacked by al Qaeda terrorists. Two hit the World Trade Center towers, bringing them down. The mayor of New York City, at the time, was Rudy Giuliani. In the response, Giuliani managed not to shit his pants. He appeared on camera in a relatively calm and composed manner, directed responses, and did his job about as well as one could do. The Police Commissioner, at the time, was Bernard Kerik. Like Giuliani, he handled the stress about as well as one could.
Did the experience provide either man with any deep insight into the global political or military challenges of addressing terrorism? No. To claim so would be stupid. Both did. Giuliani became kind of a laughing stock for his attempts, thanks to Joe Biden's greatest line: every Rudy Giuliani sentence has three elements-- a noun, a verb and 9/11. Military strategy and addressing terrorism are complicated problems, and being on the ground in Manhattan on 9/11 provides no intrinsic knowledge to how to handle these challenges. Anyone who claims otherwise should be ridiculed.
What is the most effective way to reduce crime? What is the most effective way to reduce violent crime? What is the most effective way to secure schools?
Does being at the site of an attack provide intrinsic knowledge answering these complicated policy questions?
And of course, to anyone who says that the answer is "common sense," I reject any fallback on the phrase, "common sense." In all circumstances, and all policy issues.
There is no policy issue on which I accept "common sense" as a valid argument. It isn't an argument. It is a refusal to make an argument. Policy is hard, and nobody gets a free pass to avoid having to make a logical argument. Bomb the shit out of the Middle East seemed like a simple, "common sense" response to 9/11 and terrorism more generally to a lot of people. That doesn't make it smart, or sound policy.
So, what knowledge do people need before I bother to give them a hearing on guns and gun control?
1) They need to demonstrate an understanding of "elasticity of demand." This is a vital concept from economics. When you ban a product, either outright or simply try to prohibit sales to certain people, you don't make it go away. You shift sales to the black market. That increases the risk of economic transactions, shifting the supply curve to the left. That pushes prices up. How much does that reduce consumption? It depends on the "elasticity of demand." If demand is inelastic, an increase in price associated with a shift to the black market doesn't reduce consumption. Reducing consumption through policy requires elastic demand. In order to get a hearing from me, you need to demonstrate an understanding of the concept of elasticity of demand, how it applies to the case at hand, how it can vary across countries (this matters a lot, since the left loves to talk about Australia), etc. If I don't think advocates have a firm grasp on demand elasticity and how it applies, I don't care what they have to say about guns and gun control. Protest all you want. First amendment. Engaging in a serious policy discussion, though, requires more knowledge than such people have, though.
2) They need to demonstrate an understanding of magnitude. How many people are shot in a year? How does that compare to other causes of death? How many can you reasonably expect to stop, and based on what do you make this assessment? If policy advocates aren't even trying to put things on the proper scale, then they don't deserve my attention. How many people were killed in the Benghazi attack? Four. How big a deal was that? People DIED!!!!!!!!!!!! Death. Yup. Big deal. What was the scale, though? The fact that four is a small number, put on the proper scale, made the right look batshit crazy for obsessing over it. What is the proper scale for assessing things like "mass shootings?" If, as I observed recently, young people are more at risk, statistically, of dying of heart disease than mass shootings despite the fact that heart disease is supposed to be an issue for the elderly, anyone who doesn't understand this is missing the point. Getting a hearing from me requires demonstrating knowledge of the scale.
3) They need to not respond to shootings by proposing bills that are unrelated. That's just crass. Think back. How familiar is the following: A shooting occurs. The shooter would have passed a background check, or acquired the gun from a family member or something like that, making liberals' favorite proposal completely irrelevant to the case at hand, and yet liberals try to use the event as an excuse to pass the bill because of the old politician's fallacy: "Something must be done. This is something, therefore it must be done." And don't give me any of this "there were warning signs" crap. Warning signs are different from justiciable, actionable grounds that would prevent a legal sale through a background check. If advocates are pushing for background checks, and then using a shooter who either did or could have passed a background check to justify their case, they have lost all logical footing, and don't deserve my attention.
4) If they are pushing for any type of product ban, they need to demonstrate some understanding of how many of such products exist already. They don't go away. They need to demonstrate some historical understanding of what happens when federal agents try to confiscate guns in this country, rather than, oh, say, Australia. What happens is Ruby Ridge. If they don't understand that history, they don't deserve my attention. They need to understand how easy small-scale manufacturing is with CNC machining. The need to demonstrate an understanding of how easily modifiable guns are, so that modular components can be produced with small-scale CNC machining. Yes, if you are going to talk about gun policy, you need to understand the guns themselves. Otherwise, you won't understand how easy it will be to get around the policies under consideration with engineering and CNC machining.
5) Anyone who ever uses the phrase, "common sense," loses the right to a hearing from me.
These are a few of the most important hurdles someone has to clear before I give them a hearing on guns and gun control. As a general rule, I prefer to listen to policy experts. First amendment? Say whatever you want. The first amendment is great. I just have no interest in listening unless I think someone has something to say that is a) insightful and b) that I haven't heard before.
What I have not done is dismiss protesters for being kids. Statistically, a kid is unlikely to have an argument I haven't heard before, but argument by authority is bullshit. I won't dismiss anyone for not having a Ph.D. Same thing. Argument by authority.
There is so much bullshit here, though, and it follows patterns that liberals used to criticize.
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