Trapped in Suburbia…

Plurium Interrogationum, latin for “many questions”, is the logical fallacy that occurs when someone presupposes something that is not proven to be true. Wikipedia says the following:

This fallacy is often used rhetorically, so that the question limits direct replies to those that serve the questioner’s agenda. An example of this is the question “Are you still beating your wife?” Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he will admit to having a wife, and having beaten her at some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed.

Certainly, the blogosphere is plagued by a predisposition to fallacy. I didn’t find it particularly surprising, then, when I was forwarded a link to a blog by Elizabeth Mandelman. According to her blog, Elizabeth is working towards her Master’s in Public Policy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Elizabeth is in Canada, working for Project Ploughshares as part of the IANSA global campaign to stop the “proliferation of small arms”.

In her most recent blog posting, Elizabeth – in reference to women leaving abusive relationships –  ends with:

When they do take the step to begin a new life, they must often do so with someone else’s used sheets and outgrown clothes.   How is this fair?  How is it, I wonder, that there are individuals that consider their privilege of owning a firearm more worthy than the right to safety and protection, afforded to all Canadian citizens by their government?

Elizabeth does a good job asking a loaded question. Indeed, how can firearms owners think their priviledge to own a gun is more important than the safety of abused women?

Of course, the desire to own firearms and the desire for women to not be brutalized by their spouses isn’t mutually exclusive. Indeed, I would be surprised if you could find a single firearms owner that doesn’t condemn spousal abuse. That’s to be expected. Most people find abuse, in any of its varied forms, repugnant. Why then would Ms. Mandelman suggest otherwise?

Clearly, Ms. Mandelman is doing her best to demonize firearms owners. Otherwise she wouldn’t be going out of her way, in post after post, to suggest Canadian firearms owners are either complicit, or supportive, of things they clearly aren’t. Then again, when statistics show you’re wrong I guess the next best thing is to appeal to emotion. On her blog Ms. Mandelman suggests:

Violence against women is a very serious gender-based human rights violation, and obstructs equality between men and women.  Thus, investing money into the implementation of policies like the Firearms Act is vitally important in aiding victims of abuse, and combating a serious women’s rights issue.

This time, as before, Elizabeth attempts to link gun ownership with spousal abuse. After all, the firearms act can only be vitally important in the aiding of victims of abuse, and combatting a serious women’s rights issue, if firearms owners are responsible for a significant number of cases of domestic violence. Clearly that’s what Ms. Mandelman is hinting at.

But is she right?

The RCMP, now responsible for the Canadian Firearms Center, has both the 2006 and 2007 Commissioner of Firearms Reports online.

The 2007 Report lists exactly 1,758 Firearms License revocations. Of those only 4 percent, or 70 license revocations, were due to domestic violence. At the end of 2007 there were 1,877,880 individuals licenses to own firearms in Canada. So, 0.0037% of firearms license owners had their licenses revoked as the result of domestic violence.

In 2006, there were 1,908,011 licensed firearms owners. Also in 2006, a total of 2,084 licenses were revoked. While the 2007 report breaks down revocations into “violence” and “domestic violence” percentages the 2006 report lists only “violence”.

In 2007, violence was listed as the reason for 6% of revocations – domestic violence in 4% of cases. Assuming the same proportion for 2006 some 90-100 licenses were revoked for domestic violence. Or some 0.0049% of firearms owners lost their licenses due to cases of domestic violence.

That hardly seems like justification for millions of dollars in ongoing expenditures. And it hardly seems like justification for the billion dollars that has already been spent.

Statistics Canada reports that in 2006 there were over 38,000 incidents of spousal abuse – 80% of which involved violence against women. Interestingly, where males were victims of spousal violence 23% of them were victims of major assault, compared with only 13% of female victims. According to Stats Canada:

Data came from a survey administered to 149 police services across Canada, covering about 90% of Canada’s population in 2006. Disclosing spousal violence can be difficult for many victims. As such, not all incidents are reported to the police. This analysis is therefore limited to those incidents of spousal violence that are reported to the police.

Clearly, statistics related to domestic violence are going to be plague by under-reporting as many women (and some men) will keep silent in order to avoid angering their abuser further. Still, the Statistics Canada report is the best resource available.

In it’s report titled “Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile” Statistics Canada includes a breakdown of the weapons used during incidents of domestic violence in table 1.10 on page 24 of the report. In 2006 weapons were used in 2,534 of 38,573 reported cases. Firearms were used in 34 assaults on women, and 6 assaults on men. Statistics Canada also includes a percentage breakdown in the table – firearms are listed as 0%.

More accurately, firearms were used in 0.1% of cases.

One tenth of one percent.

It seems clear to me that people like Elizabeth Mandelman and other lobbyists for groups like IANSA aren’t really interested in helping victims of domestic violence. If they were, they would focus on the causes behind 99.9% of cases of domestic violence, not the 0.1% related to firearms. Instead, they subtly suggest that firearms owners are responsible for a disproportionate amount of spousal abuse in order to justify their continued lobbying for increased controls on firearms ownership.

Clearly, any amount of domestic violence, against spouses, children, or elderly family members, is unacceptable. But we should place the blame on those responsible, and not distract ourselves from dealing with hard questions such as how we can prevent domestic violence, and how we can help victims escape violent situations and return to a normal life, by focussing on red herrings.

Ms. Mandelman says:

In closing, I need to address the claim made by pro gun advocates that I, and advocates like me, have been trying to win battles through emotional appeal.  I disagree with this statement as making the assertion, for example, that women are statistically more likely to be the victims of domestic violence is not emotionally, but rather factually, fueled.  I must say, however, that after spending nearly two hours with Cindy, it is hard not to bring emotion into the debate of why gun control is needed to help thwart abuse.

So, in closing, I need to address the claim made by anti-gun advocates that their arguments are made on logic and statistics and not on fallacious appeals to emotion. You’re wrong Ms. Mandelman, and you do a disservice to  99.9% of women in this country that live in fear of being brutalized by their spouses by suggesting you’re not.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 12:53 am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.