If you’re not already following me on Twitter, this extremely illuminating discussion of gun control is the sort of thing you are missing. Gun control advocates, note that this is what often passes for your ‘reason’ and ‘common sense’. Colleen aka @mushadamama is a perfect example of the dialectically challenged individual Aristotle described as being incapable of following a chain of reasoning and therefore ineducable by reason. As you will see, it is literally impossible to reason with them.
Note that I did not expect to convince the woman that she was wrong. Telling a stupid person precisely how stupid they are is seldom a successful rhetorical device. But I wanted to see how far she would go before retreating into her rhetorical tortoise shell. As it happens, she was willing to not only defy reason, but deny math itself, rather than even consider the possibility – or in this case, the undisputed statistical and mathematical reality – that her position on #GunControlNow was wrong.
voxday: Those who reject their own God-given and unalienable right to bear arms reject their own status as adult human beings.
fmudd101: I know right! Those child-like Europeans and Japanese with their low gun crime and murder rates.
voxday: Europeans have higher rates of gun ownership and much lower rates of gun crime and murder than African and Latin countries.
mushadamama: You can not compare their gun laws to ours. They are MUCH more restrictive. Wikipedia link.
voxday: The gun laws in Brazil and South Africa are even more restrictive. Yet they have far more gun deaths per capita.
mushadamama: Is that where you want to be? US is not first, so it’s ok? Link to murders with firearms by country.
voxday: Don’t be stupid. You can’t compare absolute numbers between nations of vastly different sizes. Look at per capita.
voxday: Also, the nations ahead of the USA HAVE STRICTER GUN CONTROL LAWS. The problem is racial, as I’ve already shown.
mushadamama: The numbers I’ve given ARE per 100k population. Perhaps the stupid one is one who doesn’t read fine print.
mushadamama: Stricter gun control=less gun crimes. #fact
mushadamama: You’ve shown nothing.
voxday: No, you stupid, stupid woman, they are not. The USA is #4 in absolute terms, #27 per capita. Link to gun homicides and gun ownership by country.
voxday: That’s not a fact, you stupid, stupid woman. That is absolutely and provably false.
voxday: You’re either lying or stupid, Colleen. White US rate=0.32/100k. Black US rate=12.5/100k. Link to US firearms homicide rate by race.
mushadamama: Yes, my chart is total gun murders @ 9369. Does not count accidents or suicides. US ranks 4th! My crime rate chart was per 100k.
mushadamama: Your chart, however, uses some kind of fuzzy math to come up with that
ridiculous #. I can only assume it is more of a probability.
mushadamama: Of which, I am not interested. We’re not playing lotto. People are dying. Your comments on race, I’ve tried to ignore…
mushadamama: Are we supposed to be relieved or delighted to know more black people are killed by guns than white people? I don’t understand.
voxday: NO! The math is 9,369 gun murders divided by 310 million pop, multiplied by 100,000. That is the correct per capita number.
voxday: You are supposed to understand legal guns are not the problem. So banning them, as they are banned elsewhere, WILL NOT WORK!
mushadamama: You’re a fool. If manipulating numbers makes you feel better, fine. But, it’s not the truth.
mushadamama: We are not going away this time. Those babies did not die for nothing. We’re going to stay loud until something changes.
voxday: Excellent. The more you talk, the less credible your position is. Everyone should read this exchange. #GunControlNow