Toolman Analysis of Opposing viewpoints
So what the heck is a Toolman Analysis???
Logos, under the Toolman system, is broken up into six sections. Claims, Reasons, Grounds, Warrants, Backing, and Qualifiers.
Logos, under the Toolman system, is broken up into six sections. Claims, Reasons, Grounds, Warrants, Backing, and Qualifiers.
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Claim: Gun control is ineffective at preventing shootings.
Reason: Chicago is known for strict gun laws and high incidence of shootings. Grounds: 500 homicides have occurred in Chicago this year! (Chicago Crime and Murder Stats, 2014). Warrant: If Chicago is known for strict gun laws and has a high incidence of shootings, then gun control must be ineffective at preventing shootings. Backing: Gun control is the most important factor that causes shootings. Rebuttal: The correlation between more shootings and more gun control should not imply causation. If it did, how would you explain that every European country and many Asian countries countries have stricter gun laws and less shootings per capita than the United States (WHO, 2012)? Chicago would seem like the anomaly. (As a qualifier I'm limiting the scope of this argument, that gun control doesn't work, to Chicago where it doesn't work) |
1 in 10 inmates convicted of gun crime said they bought their gun from a licensed dealer (Webster, 2013).
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Claim: Gun control is ineffective at preventing shootings.
Reason: Criminals don't follow laws. Grounds: 1 in 10 inmates convicted of gun crime said they bought their gun from a licensed dealer (Webster, 2013). Warrant: If criminals don't follow laws, then criminals will obtain a gun and shoot others despite the law. Backing: Laws won't deter future gun criminals. Rebuttal: This argument is circular. Criminals break laws by definition. However, this argument assumes that someone is a criminal before they break the law since they will break the law anyway. This is not always true. Gun laws may prevent people from becoming criminals since a criminal is defined by breaking a law and a gun law may discourage someone from committing a crime. Webster's statistic says nothing about non-inmates that were denied a gun and didn't commit a crime. |
State laws such as the Brady bill, which were meant to reduce gun crime by tightening gun restrictions, have shown no reductions in homicide rate attributable to the bill (Cook and Jens, 2013).
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Claim: Gun control is ineffective at reducing violent crime.
Reason: The Brady Bill was ineffective. Grounds: The Brady Bill was ineffective since a study has shown no reductions in gun crime attributable to the bill. Warrant: Since the Brady Bill has shown no reductions in homicide attributable to the bill, gun control is ineffective at reducing violent crime. Backing: Since the Brady Bill is hailed as one of the most popular gun control legislation bills, and it is ineffective at reducing crime, all gun control is ineffective at reducing crime. Rebuttal: The findings from Cook's study contains many qualifiers not expressed by gun control advocates. For example, the Brady Bill did effect gun trafficking within state, but this effect did not effect homicide rate as long as a neighboring state had looser gun restrictions. The authors of the study admit that their statistical method rested on untested assumptions, and that their null results left some room for the possibility that Brady had an effect. Lastly, even if the null results hold, the authors admit that the results are specific to the Brady Bill and do not generalize to all gun control legislation. |
Although bans on assault weapons have been shown to reduce assault weapon crime, assault weapon crime accounts for so little of total gun crime that reductions in total gun crime are insignificant (Lichtblau, 2012).
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Claim: Gun control aimed at assault riffles is ineffective at reducing violent crime.
Reason: Bans on assault rifles account for so little of gun crime. Grounds: Reductions in gun crime are insignificant from assault riffle bans. Warrant: Since assault weapon crime accounts for so little of gun crime, reductions in gun crime are insignificant and assault rifles bans are ineffective at reducing crime. Backing: Assault rifles shouldn't be banned if so few assault riffle gun crime incidents occur. Rebuttal: If assault weapons have been shown to reduce assault weapon crime, isn't that enough of a reason to ban them? How many lives are worth sacrificing to repeal a ban? |
Claim: Gun control can prevent lives from being saved.
Reason: Armed citizens are more likely to respond faster and save lives in a shooting rampage. Grounds: 14.3 average deaths occur when police stop a shooting rampage compared to 2.3 when citizens stop a shooting rampage. Warrant: Since armed citizens are more likely to respond faster and save lives than police, and gun control reduces the amount of armed citizens, gun control can prevent lives from being saved. Backing: Gun control prevents lives from being saved more than it saves. Rebuttal: Most deaths by gun violence don't occur through shooting rampages. Gun control reduces gun availability for potential criminals reducing the number of shooting rampages. Almost all gun violence is by armed civilians, so arming citizens may not decrease gun violence. Most armed citizens don't think they will be the perpetrator of a shooting. |
3/5 of felons polled agreed, "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun” (Kleck and Gertz, 1995).
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Claim: Gun control can prevent us from protecting ourselves.
Reason: Felons do not want to mess with a victim he knows is armed. Grounds: 3/5 of felons polled agreed, "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun” Warrant: Since guns may prevent crime and protect individuals, and gun control limits guns, gun control may prevent us from protecting ourselves. Backing: The criminal's knowledge of a presence of a gun on an individual can be a discouraging factor in committing a crime. Rebuttal: How is a criminal supposed to know who has a gun and who doesn't before committing the crime? Would being armed with a gun encourage criminals to become more heavily armed? Is being armed with a gun more beneficial in preventing crime than mace or a taser? |
Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker. (Cook and Ludwig, 1997)
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Claim: Gun control can prevent us from protecting ourselves.
Reason: The presence of a gun is enough to prevent crime. Grounds: The overwhelming majority of people that use a gun for self-defense merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker. Warrant: If guns protect us, and gun control limits guns, then gun control may prevent us from protecting ourselves. Backing: Since guns are used for self-defense but aren't used to hurt the attacker most of the time, guns protect us Rebuttal: The statistic, 2.5 million citizens use a gun to protect themselves a year, is overinflated. In the original study the 2.5 million figure was reduced to 2.1 million. The sample size of individuals that responded to how they used their gun for self defense was 223 and quite low to generalize to the entire American public. This article was published in 1995 when instances of armed self defense was higher. The presence of a gun has been shown to activate schemas of violence in what is called the “Weapons effect” (Berkowitz & Lepage, 1963). |
Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606) (George, 1993).
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Claim: Gun control can prevent us from protecting ourselves.
Reason: Armed citizens prevent crime by killing crooks. Grounds: Armed citizens kill more crooks than police. Warrant: Since armed citizens kill more crooks than police, we must be better protected since those crooks cannot hurt us if they're dead. Backing: It's better they're dead than us. Rebuttal: Is it a good thing that citizens are killing crooks? Are there other ways of defending ourselves than killing the perpetrators? Aren't all crooks armed citizens? At what point does an armed citizen become a crook and where does the self-defense line get drawn? |
Claim: Gun control can prevent us from protecting ourselves.
Reason: Gun control prevents us from obtaining guns and protecting ourselves from the insane, crazy, or mentally ill. Grounds: The Brady Bill (a gun control law) denies 60,000 gun transfers yearly (Cook and Jens, 2013). Many of the most recent shooters in the national news may have had mental illness. If we had guns to protect ourselves maybe we could have stopped these shooters. Warrant: Mental illness is a large predictor for gun related homicide. Backing: Every time you see a mass shooting on the news it usually has something to do with mental illness. Rebuttal: Mental illness is not a large predictor of gun violence (Emma, Webster, and Barry, 2014). Instead, gun ownership is a predictor for homicide in the home (Kellermann, et al., 2014) and number of guns per capita is a strong independent predictor of gun crime (Bangalore and Messerli, 2013). |
Claim: Restrictions on concealed firearms carrying are unconstitutional.
Reason: Restrictions on concealed carrying of guns threatens our 2nd amendment rights to bear arms. Grounds: The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner” (US Constitution, 1787). Warrant: Since citizens have the right to carry firearms, restrictions on concealed firearms carrying are unconstitutional. Backing: We should not break the constitution since the constitution provides good moral guidelines. Qualifier: Everyone would agree that excessively harmful weapons such as the uzi or bazooka should be banned. Guns may be banned in certain sensitive places such as schools or government buildings. Rebuttal: What is meant by a peaceful manner? If firearms are used to kill 32,000 (CDC) people a year and firearms are not being carried in a peaceful way, then are restrictions still unconstitutional? We restrict the uzi and bazooka because they have the potential to kill many. If handheld firearms kill so many we should restrict them as well. |