It is probably just a coincidence, but WTMA’s Tara Servatius talked about gun control on her show this morning. In response to Bob Costas’s commentary following the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide, Servatius apparently made a comment sometime in the last few days about cutting down all the trees within 200 feet of the side of highways. Her reasoning is that this would save lives, since according to her about the same number of people die each year when they strike trees in automobile accidents as are killed in gun violence.
If you think that’s specious logic, you are right.
It is also the same logic echoed by a caller into Geraldo’s show later on in the day. “If you follow the liberal logic about gun control, then we need to ban swimming pools because people die in them every year.”
Again, specious logic.
Trees and swimming pools are rarely used as murder weapons. In fact, I am willing to bet that even if they are used as murder weapons, they are not used to murder 27 people at once.
I understand that Servatius is paid handsomely to cater to the lowest common denominator of right-wing idiocy, but if she truly believes her trees-to-guns analogy is clever, then it is plain to see why conservatives do not like to actually talk about the problem of gun violence in this country.
It is because they literally have nothing to say.
We do not hear calls to ban swimming pools because rational people understand the difference between accidental deaths and cold-blooded homicide. Moreover, it is easy to see when your neighbor has decided he does not need to play by the rules and takes down the fence to his pool, making it easier for neighborhood children to wander into the pool and drown.
It is sometimes less clear when a gun owner is about to commit mass murder.
If the gun lobby and their conservative cheerleaders want to have a rational discussion about guns, then we should have one. It is long overdue.
Until then, I suppose we will have to endure the poor logic and reasoning skills of radio hosts and their fans.
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