Shooting down the strawman

Orac from Respectful Insolence is one of my favourite bloggers, but this time he shot himself in the foot. He placed the picture below under the caption "All I want for Christmas is ..., heavy duty firearms."


The picture seems posed and is not representative of parents who are gun owners at all, except maybe a few loons in the mountains between somewhere and nowhere. It turns out that it is a deliberate fake from Motifake, a website that deals in "fake motivational posters", although I accept that Orac may not have known of its origin.

Orac continues with this cryptic comment: "Somehow, I don't think we're in Hammond, Indiana anymore." It turns out that Hammond, Indiana refers to a movie in which a boy desires above all else a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.


While Orac is entitled to whatever his views on firearms may be, logical fallacies and suspect reasoning will not help his case. The picture is a typical strawman - it is a fake and misrepresents the views of mainstream gun owners. The link that Orac tries to draw between the supposed assault rifles in the picture and the Daisy Red Ryder from Hammond, Indiana is tenuous, a non-sequitur - the one idea just does not follow the other.

And why should we not still be in Hammond, Indiana? Why should a boy or girl, even in this day and age, not desire a Daisy Red Ryder for Christmas? I would not mind one myself. Why should a father or mother not give one, provided it is accompanied by responsible training and it is used only under adult supervision where the law allows? The values from Hammond, Indiana may be old-fashioned, but should they be?

This quote from Mike Venturino in the American Handgunner magazine says something about the gun culture I ascribe to:

"Also in my gun culture, people don't shoot up road signs, farmer's gates. rancher's cattle, or anything else that shouldn't be shot. People in my gun culture love to shoot, but they shoot at targets of paper or steel, or at legitimate game animals or varmints. Most people in my gun culture love competitions: not because they have to be top dog, but because competitions are their social events. People in my gun culture look forward to breaks in the games' action or the end of the days shooting so they can visit with others. Then they talk about such things as the width and depth of grease grooves in their bullets, or how many lands and grooves their barrels have or what's the best powder for such and such a caliber or gun."

OK, maybe that's a bit over the top, but you get the idea.

Full disclosure: I've been shooting for more than 40 years. I know the situation regarding firearms in South Africa, but based on my contact with American shooters, I surmise that the attitudes of mainstream gun owners are similar. My children have been introduced to responsible firearms use and safety from an early age.