Thank you for the replies to “The Argument”. The person I was speaking with was listening. He wasn’t anti-gun, nor was he regurgitating anti-gun talking points.

This is different from some of the people who stuck their oar in. The people who said things like, “We need to ban assault weapons, those large bullets are too dangerous.” or something like that. Another was, “There is no reason for large capacity magazines.” Those people aren’t listening nor are they open to learning. They might be, but that is a different discussion.

I don’t do the car ban thing. The response argument is always, “But we NEED cars. You don’t need a gun.”

My wife loves me dearly. She reads my articles. Her eyes glaze over when I quote too much from a case document. Trying to explain to somebody without the papers in hand how the Second, Seventh, and Ninth twist words is futile, in my opinion.

My “Why are you advocating for breaking the law?” is my attempt to address this.

The “slippery slope” argument is difficult to make. In my opinion, the better way of addressing it is to ask, “What is your exit plan if your proposal doesn’t work as you think it will?”

I have had luck in changing people’s feelings. I handed a NYC boy a magazine with more than the allowed number of bullets. He took it, I grabbed it back. “You can’t have that! Your state says that having that will turn you into a mass murder.” I took one round out, handed it back. “Ok, now we are safe.”

The absurdity of that was enough for him to open his mind and actually think.

Sometimes facts are not about accepting or disregarding, sometimes it is about interpretation. The problem with that is exactly the same as with “We’ve never tried real Communism with me in charge. If I’m in charge, it will be a utopia on earth.”

We have had an excellent opinion out of the Third Circuit court. You can go listen to Mark Smith talk about it, or I’ll give you a write-up tomorrow.

I’m eagerly awaiting this week’s comments. Please comment.

I attended a get-together on Saturday. One of the other people there started a discussion about firearms and the Second Amendment. Since we were in an area where there were not a bunch of people, and because he was acting in good faith and with an open mind, we engaged in a discussion.

As most such discussions go, it is difficult to pin somebody down. There is a heartfelt need to “do something”.

Some of the issues that I had were his inability to accept that we already know that bad things happen when we give an inch.

A big issue for him was training. The standard, “You are ok, and he is ok, but there are idiots out there that do dumb things, they should have training.”

My response was that a training requirement leads to de facto bans. He claimed that we don’t know that they will. When I listed the states that had done this recently, that was not accepted as proof.

He drove forward with the idea that we could write a law that would be safe from that type of meddling. He invited me to propose language for that.

I went home unhappy with my performance.

Having thought about it a bit, I think my argument should be more along the lines of:

Why do you want to break the law?

Every one of the people that I have discussions with has some sort of acceptable way of working around the Second Amendment. They argue that I should “follow the law” if they pass an unconstitutional law. At the same time, they are unwilling to obey the law, themselves.

Often they want to engage in hypotheticals where they can make such a law.

One of my standard responses is, “If you would like to do that, then you need to pass an amendment. That amendment will then allow you to pass such laws.” I did use it. He’s response was, “You would oppose that?” “Absolutely, totally.”

I then explained that they are pre-existing rights. That the Second Amendment is there to protect those rights. The Second Amendment does not grant those rights.

Regardless, I’m left feeling unsatisfied with my performance. I need more practice.

For my wife’s birthday, a few years ago, I got us tickets to see Scott Bradly’s Postmodern Jukebox. It is the only concert that I have ever paid to see.

He started on YouTube making covers of songs in different styles. In this cover of the Friends theme, they provide it in styles from the 1920s through the actual Rembrandt’s sing their version.

But this is the song I wanted to bring to you. It is one of my wife’s favorite songs. We did see Joey in concert.

I once played a Postmodern Jukebox song at the office, my office mates went down the rabbit hole, and we listened to them for a good solid week.