To accomplish anything we can't sneer, belittle, or
condescend. That gets their backs
up. We can't argue the legality of
their position. They're on good
constitutional ground. It
would be so good to move them from their position but we have little leverage.
So what can we say to them? All I can see is something like this: "Look, doesn't the issue come down to your pleasure? Matched against the risks to these
children?"
They can't argue that an assault rifle is useful or
necessary to them. They can only
argue — as they do — that taking an AR-15 out on the range or into the woods is
a pleasure. To which they have a
right, and which harms nobody else, and which is shared by millions who don't
harm anybody.
Here's where we turn to risk. They can't, in reason, deny that
barring or limiting assault weapons will reduce the risk of mass
shootings. There's too much
evidence in the experience of other countries.
So we ask them, in as public a setting as possible,
"If you hold to this position are you not saying that you are willing to risk
the murder of these children in order to preserve your pleasure?"
How not?
There is nothing other than pleasure they can claim.
We have to hope that the outrageous disproportion,
morally, between the claim of the children and their claim will occur to them,
and change them. Or that knowledge
that it has occurred to the audience will do the job, through shame. What other hope is there?
