Response To "Why Gun 'Control' Is Not Enough"

Wechsler 1
Caleb Wechsler
Professor Eva Payne
WR121 Summary Response 1
14 January 2013
Response to Why Gun Control Is Not Enough
Jeff McMahan is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. In his article titled
Why Gun Control Is Not Enough, he asks the question do guns make America safer? His
article, published by The New York Times after the school shooting in Newtown, CT was a
direct response to the national gun control debate that has recently invaded America. McMahan
uses personal opinion, philosophical insight, and oppositional argument rebuttals to form his
conclusion that the United States should ban private gun ownership entirely, or almost
entirely (1).
Throughout the document, the author plays a complex game of cat and mouse with the
opposition to defend his opinion of gun control. He gives a short explanation of an oppositional
argument followed by philosophical insight and examples to bolster his argument and discredit
the opposition. McMahan uses many different ways to defend his argument, but the strongest
tactics used are examples and comparisons used in conjunction with his own philosophical
opinion.
McMahan compares the United States to other countries in the world regarding crime
rates and governments in countries like Syria and Egypt. He uses the real world example of a
peaceful protest in Egypt as part of his argument against private gun ownership. The rest of his
examples are based upon predictions and the what if question. As the reader will undoubtedly
ask himself what if based upon the way the article was wrote, McMahan answers those
questions with philosophical opinions.
Are Americans safer when more individuals have guns? This is the main question at the
root of the article, and a good question at that. According to Humble, A good question has three
main qualities. It should be debatable, it should be answerable, and it should matter to you and
your readers (37). Gun control is obviously debatable as evidenced by the daily news. Gun
control has no clear answer, yet there is so much evidence produced by both sides that one can
produce an informed opinion (answer) to the question being asked. Furthermore, even if a reader
doesnt own a gun, they are generally law abiding citizens whom are all affected by any new
legislation of any kind. Since all three qualities of a great question have been met, I believe
McMahan did a thorough job of asking a great question.
As a liberal voting gun owner, gun control has become a very touchy subject for me.
Reading this article not only increased my heart rate, but also led me to look for any
inconsistencies in the evidence to prove the author wrong. The author did a great job of trying to
prove his point, but unfortunately there was such a lack in evidence that this was not
accomplished with me. McMahan is a philosophy professor. A PhD is a great credential, but
means absolutely nothing when writing an article based upon fabrication of prediction and not
hard evidence. A pediatrician wouldnt write a paper on cardiology without hard evidence just
because they are also an M.D. The same goes for McMahan.
McMahan states When more citizens get guns, further problems arise: people who
would once have got in a fistfight instead shoot the person who provoked them; people are shot
by mistake or by accident (1). This is absolutely contradictory with the fact that there are
thousands of legal new gun owners every day, and the vast majority of them are of no concern to
anyone else. McMahan undermines this point by generalizing that gun owners kill people. He is
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adamant about playing on fears to make a reader whole-heartedly believe that gun owners are
bad people.
McMahan then says that as more private individuals acquire guns, the power of the
police declines, personal security becomes more a matter of self-help, and the unarmed have an
increasing incentive to get guns, until everyone is armed. When most citizens then have the
ability to kill anyone in their vicinity in an instant, everyone is less secure than they would be if
no one had guns other than the members of a democratically accountable police force (2). This
is a wonderful theory, but it is just a theory. Again there is no evidence to back-up his claim that
everyone is less secure because there are guns. McMahan says later that even if there were a
legal prohibition, it could not be enforced with anything approaching complete effectiveness.
This is true. As long as some people somewhere have guns, some people here can get them.
Similarly, the legal prohibition of murder cannot eliminate murder. But the prohibition of murder
is more effective than a policy of "murder control" would be (3). This is completely
contradictory with his theory that the security of the people is greater without guns because he
admits that people will get guns no matter what. Again McMahan tends to shy away from the
bigger picture: If you ban guns, only criminals will have them, because they can obtain them
whether they are illegal or not.
In concluding his article, McMahan says In other Western countries, per capita homicide
rates, as well as rates of violent crime involving guns, are a fraction of what they are in the
United States (4). This is a big statement especially for those who are on the fence about gun
control. This makes one think, are guns actually the problem? It also made me think that for such
an important piece of evidence, there is an absolute lack of citation. 80% of statistics are made
up. Just like that one. How does the reader know that this statistic referenced by McMahan is
true, and not just another biased statistic?
This article blatantly ignores the evidence that making something illegal doesn't make it
difficult to get. McMahan also ignores the fact that if someone wants to kill someone, they will
find a way to make it happen, gun or not. He also ignores hypothesizing the consequences of
what would happen lest the government actually banned weapons.
The consistent lack of hard evidence and the style of the article led me to compare the
article to Humble and form the conclusion that this was not an essay, but rather a persuasive
paper. Humble says that the goal of persuasion encourages you to play up the evidence that
supports your answer and play down or even ignore the evidence that does notthe goal of
persuasion encourages you to play upon your readers fears or vanities rather than build a
reasonable case for your ideas (26). As stated earlier, I found at least three pieces of evidence
where the oppositional argument was completely undermined or not even hypothesized like
McMahans own arguments. Humble goes on to say that in a college essay, Honesty is the goal
(26). Because many of McMahans arguments were based upon theories and what if
hypotheses, this resulted in a lack of circumstantial evidence for his claims. If something has no
proof, it is hard to be completely honest about it.
All in all, the article was an interesting read. I am open to both sides of the debate, but it
seems as though McMahan already made his mind up before writing the article. This in addition
to his lack of hard evidence, his scholastic background, and his obvious bias towards one side
should tell the reader that the author is trying to persuade them and may very well be a
knucklehead (Humble 35).

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Works Cited
Humble, Roy K. The Humble Argument. Dallas: Problem Child Press, 2010. Print.
McMahan, Jeff. Why Gun Control Is Not Enough. opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. The New
York Times, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

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