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Charles Azubuike

Hannah Mugambi

WRI 102

13th March 2018

In Gun Control Debate, Logic Goes out the Window

Richard J. Davis was the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement and

Operations during the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981. He is now a lawyer in New

York. Richard Davis’s “In Gun Control Debate” first appeared on cnn.com in 2013, a few weeks

after the death of twenty students and six adults in the school shooting at Sandy Hook

Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In this essay, Davis aims to emphasize the need to

focus on obstacles to the effective enforcement of existing gun laws, including the ban on

keeping a federal database of firearms transactions, as well as stating how logic has lost out both

now and in the past. To achieve his goal, Davis has employed the Aristotelian model of

arguments in very efficient ways.

Davis begins his essay by stating various steps that have been taken by powers in the

United States of America to control the use of guns and other assault weapons. In his first

paragraph, he calls out on the need to also focus on obstacles that may hinder the effective see-

through of gun control measures and even goes further to identify one major obstacle; the ban on

creating a federal database to keep track of the regular transactions of firearms.

In the second paragraph, he establishes his credibility by stating that he served as the

assistant Treasury secretary overseeing the Bureau, therefore employing his knowledge of ethos

in his argument. In this same paragraph, Davis points out that the origin of the ban was earlier

discussed in response to the proposal that was initially made and this discussion contained a
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better understanding of the dynamics to be considered when debating over gun control proposals.

Thereafter, he states his thesis which implies that logic lost out in the past, and is losing out now.

Of course he does not stop there, but goes on to prove his point.

Davis carefully outlines the proposal that was made while in the Bureau during the early

periods of the year 1978. The proposal suggested that ‘manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers

would file reports of sales of firearms with the Bureau, but to avoid the argument that the Bureau

was impermissibly creating a national registry of gun owners, retailers would not be required to

list the name of the retail purchaser’. Indeed, the proposal was as ‘relatively simple’ as Davis

described it.

In the event of this proposal, two beneficial ends were expected. First, it will speed up the

ability to trace guns found at crime scenes, even with the use of less sophisticated technology,

and second, it will allow the Bureau to analyze the flow of firearms to identify any diversions

into the illegal market. The second advantage was deemed more significant. Looking at these

two ends from the logos point of view, a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion could

be drawn from each one. From the first end, the major premise is that speeding up the tracing of

guns would be beneficial to the society and the minor premise is that a federal database would

speed up the tracing of guns. From the second end, the major premise is that allowing the Bureau

to analyze the flow of firearms would be beneficial and the minor premise is that a federal

database would enable the Bureau to analyze the flow of firearms. From both ends, a conclusion

could then be derived that a federal database would be beneficial.

As we further proceed to the sixth paragraph of Davis’s essay, it could be seen that he

admits to convening a meeting with the opposition, a mistake, which he describes as ‘youthful

naiveté’. He confesses that the aim of the meeting was to make the opposition see reason from
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the limited nature of the proposal, but his predictions turned out to be very wrong. Instead, they

had to withdraw the proposals, after which the “Congress punitively reduced the Bureau’s budget

and ultimately banned it from creating such firearms transaction databases”. This part of his

essay entails the component of an argument referred to as ethos.

Paragraphs nine to eleven describe some logical fallacies or errors which Davis points out

from the opposition. In paragraph nine, the opposition concluded rather hastily that ‘the

regulation would create a centralized list of all gun owners’ names, which it would not have

done, or would lead to the creation of such a list, which would then enable the government to

seize everyone’s weapons and put us on a path to dictatorship’. This kind of argument is called a

slippery slope argument and it entails that one thing would surely lead to another, even without

proper clarity. To back up the argument, the opposition related the incidence to the Nazis, who

practiced dictatorship. In the eleventh paragraph, Davis also mentioned a second argument from

the opposition in his statement, ‘Another often-used argument was that what we were proposing

would not stop all criminals from securing or using firearms, and therefore it was not something

worth doing’. This entails another logical error termed the false dilemma. Here, an arguer looks

at a situation from only two perspectives, when there are so much more to consider. In this case,

the opposition is of the opinion that we either stop all the crime or we do nothing, and since the

proposal doesn’t completely put an end to shootings, then, it shouldn’t be considered at all.

In response to the oppositions opinion, Davis employs inductive reasoning using

examples such as seat belts that do not completely save lives, but are still used, the prohibition of

carrying guns into planes even though it does not completely eliminate the risk of hijacking,

providing assistance to terrorists though it does not stop terrorist attacks, and the issuance of

driver’s license even when it doesn’t stop all accidents. From these examples, Davis draws an
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important deduction that these regulations save lives and so are steps worth taking. He then

relates this deduction to the gun debate, siting some instances from the proposal, like stopping

the illegal sales of guns by unlawful dealers, background checks and a ban from assault weapons,

that would have certainly saved some lives.

While drawing close to his conclusion, Davis uses pathos or emotional appeal by asking

some really thoughtful questions like, ’Isn’t every life saved worth it?’ and, ‘Would it not have

been worth it if even some of the lives lost at Sandy Hook could have been saved because the

shooter did not have an assault weapon?’. These are questions that should really be considered

and their answers sought for, because they could hold the best suited stance for the debate.

Davis, in his final paragraph, restates that gun control alone isn’t the only solution to the

problems of mass shootings, but since it is a meaningful solution, it should be considered, hence

re-emphasizing his thesis that ‘Logic should not be left out’. He organized his argument and

presented it properly. This allowed him to communicate his and argue his opinion very firmly

and convincingly.
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Works Cited

Davis, Richard. “In Gun Control Debate, Logic Goes out the Window”. Elements of Argument: a

Text and a Reader, by Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell, 11th

Ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015, pp. 11-13.