Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

The only arguments that annoy me worst then the tired old arguments that statists routinely make against libertarianism are the arguments that the anti-gun side makes against the Second Amendment, which have gone from stale to flat-out rancid, like a week-old pizza that hasn’t been refrigerated. The anti-gun side just doesn’t realize that the same arguments that didn’t hold water decades ago, aren’t going to hold much in this day and age, when their side has continued to lose ground.

Yeah that’s right gun prohibitionists, we have not only heard your pitiful arguments on numerous occasions, but we have also refuted these arguments a thousand times over. So basically, whenever you deliver these arguments with your usual smugness, just remember that you are not giving us anything new. We have already crushed these arguments and blown what was left of them into the wind. Though, I will pay you guys the same courtesy that I paid my statist opponents, by telling you what arguments to avoid.

Enough of the Apples to Oranges Studies

I know you want people to believe that countries who don’t respect the right of their citizens to have the best tool for self-defense are these magical utopias where people hold hands under rainbows and sing Kumbaya all day long. Not only is that image false, but the whole notion that it’s their magic gun laws that are responsible for their low murder rates is one that relies entirely on an assumption. This is what we call confirmation bias, where you simply want to believe that the low murder rates in these countries are due to the same magic gun laws that you are advocating here in the United States, not because of other important factors such as social economic status or even cultural traits. Then when we start comparing countries that have strong gun laws and high murder rates, such as Russia, Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, Jamaica and Taiwan, you guys tell us that we can only compare the murder rates of industrialized first world countries. As soon as you admit that there are now other factors at play, you actually end up shooting yourselves in the foot (pun intended) by sabotaging your own argument.

Stop Using Outdated Studies

I know that you guys love your scary statistics, like the old Kellerman study about how a gun in the house is more likely to kill a family member than an intruder. Well guess what guys? That study has been long debunked. When you keep using a study like this, it shows that you are too intellectually lazy to use Google. The study only mentions intruders in the house that were killed and not wounded or simply scared away once a gun was brandished (like ninety-five percent of successful cases of self-defense). Even more misleading is that the study also included instances where guns were brought into the house by the intruders, and it didn’t even show the difference between the average family keeping a gun in the home for self-defense and a drug dealer protecting his supply. The Study has been long discredited. So, stop citing it.

Don’t Lie

Using outdated statistics is one thing, but flat-out lying is what angers me the most. When I first started studying the issue of guns and self-defense it always shocked and appalled me that you guys would never hesitate for a minute to lie through your teeth when it was convenient. First, there were the misleading statistics about how anywhere from ten to fifteen children a day were killed by guns, which is so outrageously high that you would have to consider anyone under the age of twenty a child and would have to include nineteen-year-old gang-bangers either killed in turf wars or shot by police to make these statistics work. Then there were the lies about how semi-automatics spray-fire like machine guns, which they don’t. Hell, the worst whopper I ever heard came from the Violence Policy Center, who accused Barrett of selling fifty caliber rifles to Al-Qaeda. I know that there was a time when we only had the traditional media platforms and research was much harder to come by. Well, those days are over. The fact that we can now access information on our cell phones means that we are now living in an age where we can look up any so-called statistic that you throw at us. Once your lies are exposed, you will have people like me who will have no problem publicly tearing you apart over them.

Enough of the You Don’t Need an AK-47/UZI/AR-15 to Hunt Argument

This is one of the arguments that I hate the most, but not for the reasons that you think I do. I know that you believe that whenever you use this argument you think it put us into a little bind, since in your deluded minds there is no possible reason for us to own such weapons. In reality these weapons are used for hunting (some of them), target shooting and self-defense. Not that we owe you an explanation, for why we need these weapons. There is a reason why the Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights and not the Bill of Needs. You may think that you are speaking our language when you make arguments like this, but really the only thing you are doing is insulting our intelligence. Also, since I find it doubtful that you guys have ever been hunting in your lives, I’ m going to advise you not to bring it up to avoid any future embarrassments.

Avoid Defeatist Arguments

I know you love to make arguments such as, “ There is no point to having a gun during a mass shooting because you will be shot before you have a chance to shoot back” or “ Woman shouldn’t have guns because their attackers will just take their guns away from them.” I guess by that same logic private security guards, bodyguards and even police officers shouldn ’t carry guns either. I suppose the same logic applies to soldiers carrying guns in the field because they are likely to be sniped or ambushed before they can get a single shot off. Why would the laws of probability be any different for them? Also, it comes off as insulting because you make it fairly obvious that you don’t think that we are competent enough to defend ourselves. Especially when it comes to female gun owners, which is not only insulting, but a little sexist. Now, I know that some of you are probably thinking, “Oh yeah, what about your defeatist arguments about how we shouldn’t pass more gun laws because we will never be able to keep them out of hands of criminals.” The difference is that you are proposing laws that would either make it difficult, if not impossible for law-biding citizens to obtain the right weapon for their defense, while having no effect on the criminal element. Since this has pretty much been the case for all forms of prohibition though out history, I would say that repeating these exact same measures, while expecting different results would be what Einstein defined as insanity. Excepting reality does not make one a defeatist.

Get Your History Straight

I just love how you guys give us the old “ You don’t need a gun. This isn’t the Wild West.” Or my favorite “We don’t need OK Corral style shoot-outs. ” I can always tell you that most of your history has been derived from John Wayne movies and not from any real scholarship. First of all, the so-called Wild West really wasn’t all that wild compared to the crime that we see in modern cities, such as Chicago or Washington DC. Hell, shoot-outs and robberies contrary to what the movies want us to believe were actually rare. Why? Because most people in the west didn’t tolerate lawlessness. Jessie James and his gang’s bank robbing career came to an abrupt end, when the town’s people took up arms to stop them from robbing the town’s bank. You are also way off when it comes to the OK Corral, since it was a shoot-out that occurred when Wyatt Earp and his men tried to disarm an outlaw gang.

Also, the Second Amendment actually does mean what it says it means. Yes, the Founding Fathers did believe in an individual right to bear arms. Read their actual words. It’s not that hard since there words were written in English and not Sanskrit. Also, to all the wannabe scholars who said that Hitler didn ’t really support victim disarmament policies, tell that to Albert Einstein who had his home raided for a rumored arsenal and when none was found, he had his bread knife taken away.

Whenever there is a Tragedy that Involves Firearms, at least wait a day before you call for more Gun Laws

This isn’t really an argument as much as it is a tactic, but I think you guys really need to stop exploiting tragedies for your own gain. Of course, that is probably too much to ask, but at the very least you guys should wait a day before you spout off your usual rhetoric. You may think that taking your anti-gun rhetoric to Twitter or the old media outlets hours after the tragedy happened makes you look caring or compassionate, but in reality, it makes you look a vulture that is looking for any opportunity to feed off the dead. At least wait a day before spew out your usual nonsense.

Avoid Arguments from Emotion

I know that there are some people who are saying by now “Gee, Sean, arguments from emotion are the only arguments they really have.” The entire point of this article is to help the anti-gun side come up with something better than the same tired arguments. Arguments from emotion are no exception. We are actually sick of hearing your side blame the NRA or law-biding gun owners every time somebody misuses a firearm. Yet, when you have a psycho that goes on a shooting rampage it usually happens in one of those sacred grounds that you guys like to call gun-free zones. In most of the places where criminals use guns on a daily basis are in areas where those very gun laws that you love so much are the strongest. I’m sorry, but logic and reason in this case trumps whatever emotional arguments you may have. They may have worked decades ago, but that time has passed.

Now that I have taken most of your arguments away, you are probably wondering what you are going to have left. Well that should show you how flawed your position really is in the end. Some would say that maybe it is time to rethink your position. That is probably too much to ask. For that matter, asking for better arguments may be expecting too much as well.