The “Guns are Bad” Assumption

Assuming guns are bad handicaps you. It keeps you from being able to talk about them sensibly.

It would be similar to what would happen if you thought dogs are bad. You’d have trouble discussing them in a reasonable way. Your faulty assumption would creep into everything you think and color everything you say. You might talk about how to register them (or the people who keep them), talk about mandatory dog-owner insurance, or discuss what kinds of dogs people should be allowed to keep. You might claim that government gives people the right to keep dogs, so it can take away that right. I mean, dogs aren’t specifically mentioned in the Ninth Amendment as something you have a right to keep, so government dog-owner control is clearly Constitutional. And obviously the founders never envisioned pitbulls, so only whatever kind of dogs they kept are covered by the Constitution. Right?

Of course, it makes no sense. Not realistically, historically, or rationally.

But that’s the kind of argument you get over and over from people who live by the faulty assumption that guns are bad.