Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
Argument: gun culture is huge in America, prohibition is really impractical and hard, we should instead focus on mental health issues
Response: 5 million years of human evolution have made mental health a very difficult area where we have very little knowledge and control, it's literally like the most difficult aspect of medical science. It's not common sense to instead focus on this because the problems are very intractable, we know very little about mental health and how to prevent rage violence. On the other hand governments are actually very good at the regulation of mass produced industrial products, we in fact know a lot about that.
I mean, ok, this isn't necessarily bad but those making the argument you're countering in large part don't actually even believe 'mental health treatment' is a beneficial thing. They think it's pseudoscience and have no basis of understanding what's involved with mental health work. It's purely being used as an attempt to distract and change the topic.
A better response, IMO, is to just dismiss false dichotomies for what they are.
"I agree that focusing on mental health is important, and I'm glad to hear what I assume is a desire to increase funding and access to treatment (LOL obviously not true). Fortunately we don't have to choose between gun control OR mental health initiatives, we can have both! So since we totes agree on mental health, let's continue talking about how gun control can, would and has saved lives."