I haven’t taken a survey, so I don’t know the exact views of all my friends and family members on gun control. But occasionally one or more of them will make their views known by posting or sharing an article or — in this case — a meme. The meme in question today was shared by an acquaintance from my high school days.

This meme caught my eye, not because of the ongoing popularity of the gun control debate, but because of its curiously correct use of apostrophes and lack of other grammatical or spelling errors.

On its face — if you read it without critical thinking — this meme seems to make sense. The basic premise is: There are SO MANY guns in the U.S. and almost none of us have been killed or injured by them so they can’t be all bad. The added bonus at the end is: you’ve been misled by talking heads on TV to think guns are all bad.

The meme is remarkable in that its lone apostrophe use (“you’d”) is correct, and that it doesn’t appear to have any spelling or egregious grammar errors. It’s not perfect, of course. The use of ALL CAPS follows the International Code Of Meme Writing, and it uses a period to end the second sentence but avoids periods on the first and third sentences. Also, the use of “over” in place of “more than” is incorrect (or is it?)

Regardless, my Silly Meme Saturday series isn’t about how poorly memes are written, but rather about their content — whether they’re factual, logical, reasonable, etc.

This meme, despite a couple of correct facts, makes errors in reasoning that render it useless.

Correct Facts

It is indeed accurate that there are more than 350 million firearms in the United States (source). Perhaps obviously, no one knows the exact number. Also, the data isn’t current — because more firearms are being manufactured and sold daily, while others are daily destroyed, lost, or rendered inoperable. But it is very safe to assume this figure is reliable.

A second fact not obviously stated but strongly implied, is that we Americans haven’t all died from gun violence. This too is true and verifiable. (As a simple anecdotal exercise, think of all the people you have ever known and then count how many of them have been killed — or even injured — by guns.) Most Americans die from just three causes: heart disease (23.4%), cancer (22.5%), and chronic lower respiratory disease (5.6%). The next most common causes of death are accidents, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease, and now we’re down to 3% per cause. Other diseases round out the top 10, except for the last one. The number 10 cause of death in the U.S. is suicide. And only about half of suicides are accomplished with guns.

About 325 million people currently live in the U.S., none of whom have been killed by firearms. Statistically, you are very unlikely to be killed by a gun.

The Reasoning

So, if the above two facts are true, then is the meme’s point valid? Not necessarily. For one thing, the meme appears to have multiple points. The initial point, driven home by the second sentence, is that guns are benign because so many of us haven’t been killed by them. The final point, in a slightly larger typeface, assumes that gun control activists have been getting their opinions from television (or, by extension, other media).

But the reasoning fails at several points.

The Straw Man

By using the phrase “if guns were really about killing people”, the meme makes it clear that the argument is against a straw man. While it’s probably true that some gun control activists hold a mistaken belief that guns by themselves are dangerous, this is of course absurd. Unlike comedic depictions in sitcoms like The Simpsons, guns do not actually fire by themselves while sitting untouched on a table. Anyone who’s ever handled a gun, or briefly inspected how they function, knows that guns — like automobiles, bazookas, or toasters — are simply manufactured devices of metal, plastic, and other materials; they have no volition. Yes, there might be a few loons on the side of gun control, but they aren’t major voices in the debate.

It’s dishonest to present the gun control advocate’s argument as “guns kill people by themselves; the sheer amount of them should mean all of us are dead by now.” If that was actually the argument, then of course this meme has defeated them.

The actual arguments made by gun control advocates are varied and multiple, but the argument based on the number of guns is a statistical argument, based on known facts. Statistically, the presence of guns increases the likelihood that someone will be shot. (For example, in a household with zero guns present, it is statistically impossible that a member of the household will use a gun to injury or kill another member of the household. In 100% of the cases where someone was killed or injured by a gun, a gun was present at the time.)

The False Dilemma

The meme further sets up the false dichotomy that firearms are either safe OR dangerous, ignoring that any gun can be both safe AND dangerous.

My gun is “safe” in the sense that it’s never been used to kill or injure anyone, it’s locked up and out of reach of children, and I never carry it around and never point it at people. But it’s also dangerous, in that its only possible use is to kill or damage people or things (or to threaten such damage). At any moment, I could snap (not an official mental health diagnosis), decide to harm someone, and — voila! — I have a deadly weapon available, just a few feet from me as I type this. Any given day or night, my home could be the site of a burglary, putting the weapon into the hands of someone clearly already willing to commit crimes. Further, in the event of a structure fire, my home automatically becomes more dangerous than other structure fires due to the likelihood of exploding ammunition.

Yes, I work to reduce the probability of these events (the probability is already fairly low), but none of my efforts negate the only possible uses of a firearm. (By comparison, other items in my home that could be deadly also have legitimate non-violent purposes — for example, my flashlights, pocket knives, electric drill, and lawnmower.)

Based on the false dilemma of safe OR dangerous, the meme concludes that guns are safe, because all of us are still alive. But based on the reality that guns can be safe AND dangerous, we know that some of us will be killed or injured by gunfire, while most of us will not.

Plain Old Reasoning Failure

There is another reasoning failure in the meme, regarding the number of guns versus the number of dead Americans. It suggests that if guns were “really about killing people, you’d all be dead”, but ignores that most people aren’t around guns on a regular basis, despite the sheer number of guns.

Fewer than a third of Americans live in a household where guns are present. (And, even within those households, not everyone has access to the guns. For example, in my four-person household, I’m the only person with access.) Most of us probably don’t even see guns on a regular basis; I know I don’t.

Furthermore, I think we’re all in agreement that guns themselves don’t walk around shooting people. I could own 40 guns instead of just one and still none of them would be harming anyone.

The Final Point

Personally, I think this illogical meme would have been more effective if it had left off the final sentence. It adds a degree of incoherence to the original argument.

Barely more than half of Americans get their news from television (source), and the vast majority of those are people above 50 — not the same people as the younger crowd that favors more gun control. And, of TV news-watchers, most of them are watching Fox News — the #1 rated cable news channel for 16 years (source). Various talking heads on Fox might have different opinions on gun control, but the station as a whole does NOT project an air of being in favor of increased regulations.

Even assuming the meme-writer meant “media in general” instead of “TV”, the final sentence of the meme fails. I have yet to see any major voice in the new media (online or in print) call for abolishing guns, banning gun manufacture or purchase, rounding up guns, or punishing law abiding gun owners simply for owning guns.

What I have seen, and I think you have too, is that (1) almost all Americans want to close every loophole in the background check laws, (2) more than 8-in-10 of us want mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases, and (3) 7-in-10 of us want bans on specific types of weapons. We’ve heard other ideas floating around too, such as using mental illness diagnoses or inclusion on the “No Fly List” being used to prohibit gun purchases. Some have suggested raising the minimum age to purchase a gun and others (me) have suggested mandatory training sessions for anyone who purchases a gun. Still others have tossed out the idea of requiring gun owners to purchase insurance against their gun being used to kill or maim another person.

None of these ideas suggest “hate” for guns. All of them suggest an abundance of realistic caution about one of the two most dangerous things the average American is allowed to own (the other being automobiles).

Did you know the U.S. government outright banned lawn darts after three children died? Lawn darts.

Conclusion

This meme uses a couple of accurate facts, but makes its case poorly and employs multiple logical fallacies.

I agree with part of the general tone used here, however. I do think most of the hysteria that arises after mass shootings is unhelpful. Gun control advocates could do well to remember that the vast majority of us are very unlikely to be killed or injured by gunfire. Violence overall is decreasing in our nation (and in the world as a whole) and it doesn’t do our cause any good to ignore that.