A look into Nancy Pelosi's False Assumptions about Guns

Nancy Pelosi is ignorant about the state of gun laws. It is not surprising. Many people base their decisions about guns and laws on ignorance. It is possible that she is lying. I suspect ignorance. Most Progressive decisions about guns are made from false assumptions about reality. Once those assumptions have been internalized, there is no need for further thought or learning about guns and gun laws. Those decisions have already been made. The assumptions are obvious in the following statement from Nancy Pelosi. From njherald.com:

"Far from making Americans safer, this deadly, extreme Republican bill would make it legal for more dangerous and untrained people to carry loaded, hidden guns in more public places and would inexplicably try to make the weakest and most dangerous state concealed-carry laws the law of the land in all 50 states," she said.

The assumption is that more guns in public places make those places more dangerous. She does not need evidence to support her assumption. It is an assumption, an article of faith, something that is intuitively obvious to her.

Readers will recognize it from a hundred comments about guns and gun laws from those who fear guns and want more gun laws. The assumption is, simply, more guns, more danger. Reality is far more nuanced and subtle. More guns do not mean more danger. More guns can mean less danger.

A fairer reading of this assumption could be: If you know nothing about guns, more guns will seem to mean more danger. The more you know about guns, the less dangerous they will seem.

Former Speaker of the House Pelosi goes on to say the proposed law would invite concealed weapons into schools, churches, bars and public lands.

If the concealed-carry bill is approved by the House and Senate and signed into law, key state and local laws protecting against gun violence could be overridden, Pelosi said, "inviting concealed weapons into schools, churches, bars and public lands."

Guns do not have volition. Inviting a gun into a bar results in no action. The gun will simply stay where it has been left until someone moves it to another place.

Attributing volition to inanimate objects is an old animist belief that Western Society overcame hundreds of years ago. Nothing in the bill changes where guns may legally be possessed. That is left up to state law, which is not changed. If Arizona forbids the open carry of guns in bars, the bill does not change that.

People who can legally possess and carry guns have shown themselves to be much less dangerous than people in society as a whole.  Some studies have shown that more guns make areas less dangerous. Other studies have shown more guns do not make a difference. No credible study shows that more legal guns in public areas make those areas more dangerous.

Most will notice that Nancy Pelosi ignores the Constitution, the Second Amendment, and the rule of law. Progressives do not believe in the Constitution, the Second Amendment and the rule of law. They believe in the power of government. Constitutional arguments mean little to them, because they believe the Constitution is almost meaningless. They express this by saying the Constitution is a "living document" or that it has to be interpreted for today's society. Those words simply mean the Constitution only means what they want it to mean when they want to use it for their purposes.

Nancy Pelosi cannot afford to become educated about guns and gun laws. To do so would be dangerous to her position in the Democrat Party. She might not be able to lie as convincingly as she can speak from ignorance.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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