Logical Fallacies essay
The argument chosen for this analysis is named “Guns in America: freedom from the fear of firearms” by Chad R. MacDonald. The issue considered in this post is the recent shooting in Fort Hood and the debate on whether guns should be legally allowed or prohibited in America. The premises of the argument listed by MacDonald are the following: the gun violence problem in the United States is worsening; the rate of mass shootings is alarming; the majority of Americans are willing to have gun control laws back (MacDonald, 2014). The author considers different points of view and facts, and comes to the conclusion that only responsible people who are mature enough should be allowed to own a gun.
There are numerous logical fallacies in MacDonald’s argument. He mostly uses inductive reasoning and makes generalizations basing on individual cases. However, his reasoning is weak and in most cases where MacDonald uses generalizations, they are logically incorrect. For example, MacDonald states that “the gun violence problem worsens” and seems to support his conclusion by a link to the news article named “Mass shooting in America: a historical review”. However, this article only contains statistics showing that the number of mass shootings in the 1990s was 42 and in the 2000s it declined to 28. During 2010-2013, there were 14 mass shootings, but this statistics does not provide enough information to state that gun violence issues really became worse; the article rather presents facts and situations in a way which is alarming to the reader.
Furthermore, MacDonald makes numerous hasty generalizations in the post. For example, he attacks the argument of Wayne LaPierre (“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!”) by considering a case when two officers took down a gunman after the gunman killed his victim. In the considered case, nine people were wounded before the gunman was taken down. MacDonald uses a sole example to state that LaPierre’s statement was fallacious: “This is the absolute best-case scenario of LaPierre’s fallacious statement” (MacDonald, 2014). Furthermore, MacDonald uses this case to generalize that other gun owners are going to do even worse that the police, and uses an argument to the person right after that: “If you imagine that you are a ‘good guy with a gun’ then you are neither responsible, nor mature enough to be handling one” (MacDonald, 2014).
Although the author cites a lot of sources and facts so that it seems that his arguments are logical and consequent, his arguments and conclusions are mostly fallacious. MacDonald uses many ambiguous and incorrect premises such as the worsening of gun violence issue which is not supported by reliable statistical data but is accompanied by an infographic with questionable sources. Furthermore, MacDonald’s conclusions are not related to his arguments: he considers the arguments of gun proponents, the questions of freedom and responsibility, law enforcement, gun lobbies and John Lott’s research, but it is not clear for the reader how MacDonald’s conclusions are related to the subsections of the post. Basing on the above-mentioned facts, it is possible to label the argument of MacDonald as weak.
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