In my lastblog, I asked you to imagine a country in which many apartment buildings are built with materials so flammable they easily catch fire, killing dozens of people each episode. The solution to such a problem, it seems, should be for government officials to regulate those building materials so the buildings won’t be so deadly for people who live in them.

But in that imaginary country, politicians in the grip of the Materials Rights Association (MRA) defended the use of those flammable building materials, using three “arguments”:

1. “It’scomplicated. There are multiple factors in fires…”
2. “Critics of these building materialsdon’t even know the difference在建筑的包层和外墙之间。”
3. “Thisis not amaterials issue.It’s anarson/electrical wiring/fire alarm/… issue.”

Despite their intellectual shoddiness, these responses worked in the story through obfuscation [as in 1)], intimidation [as in 2)], and rhetorical punch [as in 3)]. But it’s not hard to see why, from a rational perspective, they don’t come close to justifying inaction. To 1): The existence of multiple factors doesn’t entail people shouldn’t deal with one of the main ones. To 2): Not knowing the difference between cladding and siding doesn’t disqualify a person from calling for regulation in response to fires; and it’s part of the legislators’ job to carve the more nuanced categories. And to 3): The existence of, say, a wiring flaw doesn’t rule out a problem with building materials, since both problems can and did exist.

Furthermore, I think it’sobviousto almost any reader of the story that these “arguments” are both rationally flawed (in a way that’s easy to detect) and presented in bad faith: even the advocates of the “arguments” themselvesshouldknow how bad they are.

But now we come to the point. Despite how obvious it is that these “arguments” are bad (when approached as a part of a hypothetical case), real people in the contemporary United States are often taken in by the same “arguments” in a different context—the perpetually recurring American gun debate.

As my reference toParkland, FL在第一部分的结尾，作者指出，美国实际的枪支暴力致死问题在某种程度上类似于故事中的火灾致死问题:建筑材料/枪支是众多导致死亡的因素之一，但它是一个重要的因素，对情况的致命程度有着巨大的影响。在美国，人们确实有权利以某种方式武装自己(这并不适用于任何事情)，就像故事中人们有权利选择建筑材料一样。但无论在哪种情况下，这都不会削弱加强监管的理由。在目前的美国，枪支管制的情况(在那里，管制的范围应该由实证和法律研究提供信息)与在故事中对建筑材料管制的情况一样好:与它们可以挽救的生命相比，管制只是一个小小的不便。

So here’s the puzzle. Why is it so easy to see that these “arguments” are terrible when encountering them in a fictional story—and I assume it would be easy for almost anyone to see they’re terrible—but they march on like zombies in the present gun debate? Why aren’t they just as easily dismissed?

Most of us have heard the following kinds of utterance from gun advocates when talking about events like school shootings:

1. “It’scomplicated. There are multiple factors to consider…”
2. “Gun control advocatesdon’t even know the differencebetween an automatic and a semiautomatic.”
3. “Thisis not aguns issue.It’s a心理健康问题!”

Why are they taken seriously in real life, when in a different context it’s so easy to see they’re not the least compelling?

One might be tempted to say that people who believe such arguments lack the intellectual acuity to see what’s wrong with them. And that may be true in some cases, but not in many. We need a better explanation.

I submit the following: The “arguments” in question are potentsociallyin two striking ways.

First, they induce fatigue. Even though the “arguments” are patently bad, it takes some work to untangle them and explain why they are wrong. It also takes work to figure out if they are made in earnest or merely as obfuscating sophistry. That all takes time and energy. Thus, each “argument” is anefficientway for a gun advocate to deplete the temporal and other resources of a gun reform advocate. One pithy phrase is all it takes.

Second, these “arguments” sneak presuppositions onto the table (without stating them) that are favorable to gun advocates. The second, for example, presupposes that one must be intimately acquainted with distinctions between gun types before expressing a public opinion. That’s false, because it’s reasonable for the public to demand that representatives take action on a certain issue and leave the important details to the representatives—it’stheir jobto work out the details. But the presupposition that you have to be highly informed before you can talk is easy to sneak in and tips the scales in the gun advocates favor, since he (usually) knows a lot more about guns.

因此，这样的论点在理智上是愚蠢的，但在战术上是聪明的。

That’s a bitter realization for us reformers, but it’s one we must accept: being right, having better evidence, and reasoning better are not enough. Part of the agenda for arguing more effectively for gun reform needs to be finding arguments that are alsotacticallyeffective. And that is likely to beat least就像制造理性合理的论点一样困难。但最终，这一点同样重要。