4. Straw Man
The straw man is arguably
the most common fallacy in modern debate. The fallacy involves taking someone’s point or argument and reducing it to a caricature that is easy to knock over.
A case in point can be found in
a recent column by Jerry Adler of Yahoo. In it, Adler mocked an article written by
National Review’s David French which stated that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to defend liberty from potential state tyranny.
Adler depicts French as defending assault-style rifles “on the grounds that we might need them to fight a reprise of the American Revolution.” He invokes the image of “middle-aged guys running around the woods in camo pants” trying to go “up against the Marine Corps.”
But French never mentioned the American Revolution, Marines, or middle-aged guys in camo pants. In fact, French explicitly states that an armed citizenry would not be much use if it came to open conflict between the people and the state.
“The argument is not that a collection of random citizens should be able to go head-to-head with the Third Cavalry Regiment. That’s absurd. Nor is the argument that citizens should possess weapons “in common use” in the military. Rather, for the Second Amendment to remain a meaningful check on state power, citizens must be able to possess the kinds and categories of weapons that can at least deter state overreach, that would make true authoritarianism too costly to attempt.”
Instead of directly engaging French's argument that semi-automatic rifles are a more meaningful check on state power than sidearms and shotguns, Adler created a straw man. What’s interesting is that Adler did this while admitting that French “acknowledges that ordinary citizens wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the 101st Airborne” and that there is little evidence that the 1994 "
Federal Assault Weapons Ban" reduced gun violence.
