Guns don't belong on Montana campuses

Posted: Thursday, March 12, 2015 12:00 am

Thats a costly fight we dont need.
The emotional crucible that is a college rivalry sports

The MSU campus is no stranger to gun violence.

venue epitomizes the potential dangers of allowing

Twenty-five years ago, an emotionally disturbed student

Montana University System students to freely carry guns

shot and killed two fellow students in a dormitory with a

around state campuses.

gun he brought in from his pickup truck. That incident

The Montana State University-University of Montana

rivalry is said to be among the oldest and most intense in

illustrates how far things can go when firearms are

readily available in the college environment.

the nation. Despite the best efforts of the schools

In fairness, many Montana college and university

officials, football and basketball games between the

students perhaps most were raised in homes where

schools have been known to spawn physical

guns for hunting and varmint control were common.

confrontations. They dont call it The Brawl of Wild

They are typically familiar with gun safety practices and

when the two schools meet for nothing.

behave very responsibly with firearms of all types. But

Throw guns into the mix of high emotion and alcohol

consumption that characterizes these games and you
would have a toxic brew indeed.
But thats what could happen if lawmakers in Helena get
their way. A bill to allow students and visitors to carry
guns into campus buildings including stadiums and

our state campuses have highly diverse student

populations that include many who have no knowledge
or experience with guns.
Lawmakers motives for continually pushing this issue
are hard to fathom. Will they next be advocating that 18year-olds be free to carry guns into our high schools?

field houses appears headed for the Legislatures

The question that our legislators need to ask is simple:

approval and on its way to Gov. Steve Bullocks desk.

Will allowing guns on our campuses make those places

Lawmakers need to come to their senses and kill this

safer? If we are being honest and can put ideology aside,

measure. Failing that, Bullock should veto the bill as he

the answer to that question is clearly no.

did in the last Legislature.

Even if Bullock did sign this into law, it would certainly
be headed for a long and heated court battle over the
independent authority granted the U-systems Board of
Regents in the Montana Constitution.

(It generalizes that ALL college students are all unfit

to carry guns)

AUG 27, 2013 4:03PM ET

Pat Robertson Defends His Warning of Gay AIDS Handshake Rings
The Christian Broadcasting Network, which has
alternately apologized ordefended Pat Robertson a
lot lately, reportedly edited out a comment by the 700
Club co-host from the archived version of today's
broadcast. The host, responding to a question from a viewer
who was concerned about an HIV-positive church member,
claimed on air that gay people in San Francisco use rigged
rings to try and give people AIDS when they shake hands.
In a later version of the episode posted to CBN's website,
however, those comments were nowhere to be found.
Right Wing Watch has the video of the original comment
(Update: After CBN successfully removed the clip from
Youtube and Vimeo, a copy of the unedited exchange
remains on Dailymotion. For now. Just in case, the full
transcript is below). In it, Robertson apparently avoids cohost Terry Meeuwsen's best efforts to change the subject
away from his gay agenda conspiracy theories:
CBN's official transcript of the episode still includes the full
exchange. Emphasis ours:
Terry: THIS IS MARY WHO SAYS, "MY SUNDAY
SCHOOL CLASS WAS ASKED TO GIVE
TRANSPORTATION FOR A MAN FROM A NURSING
HOME TO SUNDAY SERVICES, QUOTE,"HIS
ELDERLY FATHER COULD NOT DRIVE ANYMORE."
"I DROVE HIM 20 PLUS TIMES. I FOUND OUT HE IS
DYING OF AIDS. I THINK THOSE DRIVING HIM
SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOLD IN A PRIVATE WAY. A
FEW PEOPLE KNOW. BUT I FEEL DECEIVED. DID
SOMEONE HAVE A MORAL OBLIGATION TO TELL
THE DRIVERS THE TRUTH? WHAT IF WE HAD AN
ACCIDENT. I'M GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE UNTIL I
SORT THIS OUT."
Pat: I MUST CONFESS I DON'T KNOW ALL OF THE
IMPLICATIONS ABOUT AIDS. I USED TO THINK IT
COULD BE CONTAGIOUS BY SALIVA. I DON'T
NECESSARILY THINK -- YOU DIDN'T GET AIDS. SO
UNLESS THERE IS A CUT OR SOME BODILY FLUID
TRANSMISSION, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO CATCH IT.
BUT IT IS A HORRIBLE THING. I DON'T KNOW
WHAT TO SAY. THERE ARE LAWS NOW -- I THINK
THE HOMOSEXUAL COMMUNITY HAS PUT
THESE DRACONIAN LAWS ON THE BOOKS TO

PROHIBIT PEOPLE FROM DISCUSSING THIS

PARTICULAR INFLICTION.
YOU CAN PEOPLE YOU HAVE A HIGH BLOOD
PRESSURE, BUT YOU CAN'T TELL ANYBODY
ABOUT AIDS. YOU DIDN'T CATCH ANYTHING, SO
KEEP GOING TO CHURCH AND PRAISE THE LORD.
Terry: I THINK YOU WERE DOING A GOOD THING
BY TRANSPORTING THIS MAN. I HAVE KNOWN
MANY PEOPLE IN AIDS AND HAVE NEVER FELT
FEARFUL. EVEN IF YOU HAD HAD A CAR
ACCIDENT.
Pat: I THINK PEOPLE IN THE GAY COMMUNITY,
THEY WANT TO GET PEOPLE. THEY'LL HAVE A
RING, AND YOU SHAKE HANDS, AND THE RING
HAS A LITTLE THING WHERE YOU CUT YOUR
FINGER.
Terry: REALLY?
Pat: REALLY. IT IS THAT KIND OF VICIOUS STUFF,
WHICH WOULD BE THE EQUIVALENT OF
MURDER.
FOR THAT ONE, GO BACK TO YOUR CHURCH.
YOU'RE FINE.
Terry: I AGREE.
Pat Robertson, in a statement to the Atlantic Wire, defended
his remarks, saying that security guards in San Francisco
once told him that "AIDS-infected activists" were
"deliberately trying to infect people like me by virtue of
rings which would cut fingers and transfer blood." Here's
his full statement:
I was asked by a viewer whether she had a right to leave her
church because she had been asked to transport an elderly
man who had AIDS and about whose condition she had not
been informed. My advice was that the risk of contagion in
those circumstances was quite low and that she should
continue to attend the church and not worry about the
incident.
In my own experience, our organization sponsored a
meeting years ago in San Francisco where trained security

officers warned me about shaking hands because, in those

days, certain AIDS-infected activists were deliberately
trying to infect people like me by virtue of rings which
would cut fingers and transfer blood.
I regret that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this
often happens because people do not listen to the context of
remarks which are being said. In no wise were my remarks
meant as an indictment of the homosexual community or,
for that fact, to those infected with this dreadful disease.

(Argumentum ad verecundiam: the appeal to authority;

because if a person in a position of power believes
something, then it must be true. Argumentum ex culo:
just plain making things up. Overgeneralization: taking
a condition that applies to part of a group and calling it
a general rule regarding the entire group, with no
regard as to accuracy. )

Congress should stop flirting with disaster

Debt-ceiling brinkmanship has gone on long enough. There's a clear compromise available to avert real damage to the
U.S. economy.
July 27, 2011

With as little as a week remaining until the federal

government runs out of money to cover all its bills, it's
time for Republicans and Democrats to scale down their
partisan ambitions and get a deal done to raise the debt
ceiling. But the House GOP, which picked this fight,
doesn't seem willing to end it. Instead, Speaker John A.
Boehner (R-Ohio) wants Congress to manufacture
another potential crisis early next year, presumably so
Republicans can again demand concessions that
Democrats simply will not make. That's just nuts.
Opinion Poll: How anxious are you about the debt
ceiling?
The Boehner plan would allow President Obama to raise
the debt ceiling now and early next year in exchange,
respectively, for discretionary spending cuts and
additional deficit reductions to be determined by a
bipartisan congressional commission. The measure
would all but guarantee another prolonged battle over
whether to raise the debt ceiling early in 2012, with the
presidential campaign in full swing.
That's a frightening prospect. But Boehner is having
trouble lining up support for his proposal among his
fellow House Republicans, who want to extract deeper
spending cuts before raising the debt ceiling. Never

mind that just four months ago, the House approved a

spending bill for the rest of fiscal 2011 that pushed
borrowing beyond the current debt ceiling. Or that three
months ago, the House passed a GOP-penned budget for
fiscal 2012 that called for almost $9 trillion in additional
borrowing over the coming decade.
At the same time, Senate Republicans are blasting
the alternative offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.), which would raise the debt ceiling enough to
last through next year's election while reducing projected
deficits by $2.7 trillion. Even though Reid's plan
involves no tax increases, Republicans are complaining
that the spending cuts aren't real because they rely
heavily on the military drawdowns in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Obama and Boehner didn't help matters with their
nationally televised speeches Monday
evening. Obamaquixotically championed a much larger
deficit-reduction deal that includes tax increases and
entitlement cuts, a laudable goal but not an achievable
one at this stage. And Boehner beat the drum for a rigid
"tea party" approach that Senate Democrats have already
rejected.

Meanwhile, chances are increasing that the United

States' pristine credit rating will be downgraded by at
least one of the three major ratings firms, raising interest
rates and hurting the economy. Enough is enough.
There's a clear compromise available that blends Reid's
proposed cuts and debt-ceiling increase with Boehner's
proposed mechanism for enforcing those cuts.
Lawmakers should embrace it and stop flirting with
fiscal disaster.

(appeal to ridicule; appeal to fear (argumentum ad

metum))

Newspaper Logic: Akron Beacon Journal Attack on Homeschooling

By Nathaniel Bluedorn
Have you ever read something you knew was
wrongand just felt frustrated about it? It didnt make
sense, but you couldnt explain why?
Recently an Ohio newspaper, the Akron Beacon
Journal,printed a series of articles attacking
homeschooling. They claim that little is known about
homeschoolers and suggest the government should
tightly monitor and regulate the movement. They quote
school officials and focus groups who say that
homeschooling can hide child abuse and failing students.
This is nothing new. We didnt pay much attention until
a friend told us that the first article mentions our logic
book The Fallacy Detective. Ironically, we discovered
that the two reporters who wrote these articles, Doug
Oplinger and Dennis J. Willard, showcase several
brazen errors in reasoning.
Wed like to give you a few tools for explaining to your
friends, neighbors, and elected officials why using bad
logic isnt a good idea when attacking homeschoolers.
Our purpose isnt to point out all the fallacies in these
articles. We want to equip you to do this yourself.
(Parents, finding fallacies in these articles might make a
good school assignment.) Here is a crash-course in
debunking bad newspaper reporting.
Fallacy 1: Appeal to the People

Claiming that something is true just because many

people believe it is the fallacy of the appeal to the
people. The Akron Beacon Journal articles use this
fallacy frequently.
Nationally, according to the most recent polls on
the topic, the country is divided on the
socialization issue.
A 2001 Phi Delta Kappa poll found that the
public, by just a slightly larger percentage (49 to
46), believes home schooling does not promote
good citizenship. More than half 53 percent of
the people who live in the Western United States
believe home schooling promotes good
citizenship, while only 37 percent in the East
agree. (Nov. 16)
. . . .92 percent of [Americans] said home
schoolers should take the same tests required of
public school students. (Nov. 15)
We may not like to admit it, but we all become uneasy
when many people disagree with us. However, public
opinion is not a good gauge for what is true or false. Just
because a large percentage of the population thinks
homeschooling fails to produce good citizens does not
make this true. Asserting this would be an appeal to the
people.

Fallacy 2: Faulty Appeal to Authority

Another fallacy used in the Beacon Journal articles
is faulty appeal to authority.
David Swarbrick estimates that 60 percent [of
homeschoolers] are on par with the public
schools, 20 percent are above and 20 percent are
below. (Nov. 15)
When we read a quote like this, we might worry that it
indicates that homeschoolers dont excel at academics
the way we thought.
However, before we accept what Swarbrick says, we
need to look at his credentials. Is he an authority on
comparing the academic accomplishments of
homeschool students to government school students? We
read that Swarbrick is a math tutor for 225 homeschool
students in Texas. Based on what these articles say, he
only has contact with students who need tutoring in math
probably not a good cross section of homeschoolers.
To appeal to his expert knowledge would be a faulty
appeal to authority. (Note: David Swarbrick has said that
he was dreadfully misquoted by Oplinger and Willard.)
. . . there are huge, untested segments of the
home-school population that may be failing,
according to many researchers. (Nov. 15)
An ambitious reporter can find someone willing to say
anything he wants. It means nothing when a reporter
writes, many researchers say. . . . We can find many
researchers willing to say there are space aliens living
among us. A reporter needs to name the researchers he is
quoting and explain their credentials. Otherwise, he is
using a faulty appeal to authority.
Fallacy 3: Proof by Lack of Evidence
. . . [T]he nation [collects] an unprecedented
volume of statistics on public school students. . . .
[But] it . . . knows almost nothing about children
who are educated at home. (Nov. 15)
Lack of evidence is only evidence that there is a lack of
evidence. There is no evidence of widespread
cannibalism among Akron, Ohio residents; should the

government fund a massive study to learn why there is

no evidence? No, the government should channel its
money to study problems for which we have evidence.
This line of reasoning tempts us to lose perspective. We
imagine all the horrible possibilities of what
homeschoolers could be doing behind closed doors, but
we forget that we have absolutely no evidence for this
we only have a lack of evidence. Paranoia is an irrational
fear of the unknown.
A reporter commits the fallacy of proof by lack of
evidence when he suggests that something is true simply
because there was no evidence to the contrary. A lack of
evidence cannot be used to support or refute anything.
The reporter has the burden of proof to supply positive
evidence to support his claim.
School superintendents and other child
professionals say an unknown number of children
receive an inadequate education at home. . . .
(Nov. 15)
An unknown number may be a million or zero. We dont
know. We could say an unknown number of newspaper
reporters were smoking an unknown substance when
they wrote this article.
Throughout these articles, Oplinger and Willard weave
together the proof by lack of evidence fallacy with
another manipulative technique called innuendo.
Fallacy 4: Innuendo
In Texas, a librarian told the Beacon Journal that
some home-schooling parents objected to the
book selection on the shelves. They lobbied the
library to bring back older editions books that
depicted the United States in the 1950s, prior to
the landmark 1964 civil rights legislation. . . .
That idea is espoused on a number of racist
Internet sites. . . . (Nov. 16)
Notice how Oplinger and Willard never explicitly claim
that these homeschoolers are racist. They would need
evidence to support this accusation. They only

insinuate.Innuendo is a propaganda technique that uses

subtle and misleading language to manipulate our minds.
Racist and extremist home schoolers are almost
invisible until an event thrusts them into the
publics consciousness. . . . In 1994, Gordon
Winrod, an avowed anti-Semite and racist,
kidnapped his eight grandchildren from their
home in North Dakota and took them to a remote
area in Missouri for six years and home-schooled
them. . . . (Nov. 16)
To conclude that Winrod homeschooled these children
simply because he did not send them to school clearly is
a misrepresentation of homeschooling. Winrod
kidnapped these children. Do all kidnappers homeschool
their victims? By referring to kidnapping in an article
about homeschooling, Oplinger and Willard suggest that
this kind of behavior might characterize homeschoolers.
A tour of the Patrick Henry campus [a college
connected with HSLDA] offers an impression of
little or no racial diversity. . . .
On the colleges apparent lack of racial diversity,
[a representative of the college] said thats not
important to the organization. . . .

The only African-American visible on a busy day

early in the 2003-04 school year was a kitchen
worker. (Nov. 17)

Oplinger and Willard never directly say that Patrick

Henry College is racist, but they imply this with their
strategically truncated quotes and observations.
Warning to Reporters
This attack on homeschoolers has provided us with an
exhilarating supply of material to teach logic. It made
our day.
Oplinger and Willard may have mentioned our book to
hint that homeschoolers dont use logic. But as we read
their articles, we found that these reporters demonstrated
a remarkable ignorance of logic. They should have read
our book. It might have saved them the time it took to
write those articles. But were happy for the opportunity
to teach some logic.

Fox News Adopts Gowdy's Fallacy To Accuse Clinton Of Hiding Emails

B l o g M a r c h 1 0, 2 0 1 5 6 : 3 6 P M E D T O L I V I A K I T T E L
Fox News figures are adopting an impossible standard to

claim, Gowdy referenced a photo of Clinton on her

launch unprovable allegations against Hillary Clinton,

phone during a trip to Tripoli, Libya, and the absence of

arguing that the absence of an email can insinuate that

any email from that day related to Benghazi. According

Clinton either withheld or destroyed evidence.

to Gowdy's logic: "It strains credibility to believe that if

you're on your way to Libya to discuss Libyan policy

Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on

that there's not a single document that's been turned over

Benghazi, claimed on the March 8 edition of CBS' Face

to Congress."

The Nation that there are "gaps of months" in Clinton's

email documents turned over by the State Department

Fox News personalities quickly adopted Gowdy's absurd

for the committee's investigation. To prove his

line of attack against Clinton. On his radio show, Sean

Hannity asserted that "you can't tell me that it was an

The reality is, the State Department turned over Clinton

accident that 55,000 pages of emails were turned over

emails related to Benghazi to the Select

but not one was about Benghazi." Fox contributor

Committee months ago. In a March 6 letter chastising

Andrew Napolitano took the attack further alleging that

Gowdy for "the very partisan and political turn" to issue

Clinton's control of her documents means Gowdy "does

a subpoena to Clinton, Democratic members of the

not know if she gave him everything he

House Select Committee noted that the State Department

subpoenaed." Bill O'Reilly echoed Gowdy's allegations

already turned over 300 Clinton emails related to

on the March 9 edition of his show, saying "there's

Benghazi, and those emails confirm the findings of

already a gap brought out by Congressman Gowdy"

the Accountability Review Board:

because "the day that she traveled to Libya, there's no

emails that came out on that and it's inconceivable that

These documents include no evidence to suggest that

she wouldn't have any." And during an interview with

Secretary Clinton ordered the Secretary of Defense to

Gowdy, Megyn Kelly agreed with demands that Clinton

"stand down," no evidence to suggest that she was

turn over her private email server stating that Clinton

personally involved in denying requests for security for

"chose to create a situation" where questions about her

Benghazi, and no evidence to suggest that she ordered

emails would need to be answered.

the destruction of documents. Nothing in these emails

contradicts or calls into question the findings of the

According to that fallacious reasoning, the absence of

evidence proves wrongdoing on Clinton's part.

independent Accountability Review Board.