The "Why do you need?" fallacy. (Re: gun control)

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It never fails that this comes up in a debate with a hoplophobic/ gun control advocate.

"Need" matters not in America, it is your right to own any weapon you can pay for (that the ATF won't go insane over).

I have heard this line several thousand times since the shooting in Connecticut last month, and I don't even bother trying to counter it anymore.

However, what would be a good counter for this fallacy? (just in case I care to debate it again in the future)

I would humbly suggest that they aren't questioning the idea that you have the right so much as questioning the need for the right-they don't just want to take your guns away, they want to take away your 2nd amendment rights.

As for debating it, you can just as easily point out other things people don't need to have and are extremely dangerous, such as pools. I didn't hear anything about trying to ban above ground pools during the Casey Anthony debacle, for example.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsvggjYRbL0[/youtube]People should have the right to defend themselves if this woman did not have a gun she would be raped and killed![youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhOHamq308[/youtube]What would happen if this lady did not have a gun to defend herself? Her baby would be killed and then she would be raped then killed shortly after! So those who believe ALL guns should be outlawed in America can suck it! The second amendment is there for a purpose, its for self defence if guns were to be outlawed the only people allowed to have guns would be cops and crooks illegally obtaining them.

We may not always need guns per se but in situations where a lot of hostile people are around out to kill you for no reason they may be necessary because without a gun a person breaking into your house threatening to kill you while your on the phone with the cops the person will have his way with you and or kill you before the cops arrive!

You seem to see a fallacy where none exists.

When a person asserts a right to acquire and possess a firearm, that person does not appear to me to be labouring under a misapprehension--the right is clearly established. You might not agree with the right, but it is wrong to suggest that reliance on that right is a fallacy.

If there is any fallacy going on, it is the fallacy of the constant threat. There are not "a lot" of hostile people; as a percentage of the population, perpetrators of violent crime continue to be a very small number. Hostile people are rarely "out to kill you for no reason;" most deaths and serious injuries as a result of crime tend to be incidental to attempts at other, lesser crime. Hostile people who break into a home are generally there to commit property crime. Now that's not to say that random rapes and murders do not occur. But they are exceptional. Most rapes and murders are perpetrated by a person known to the victim.

But while AspieOtaku is clearly labouring under a misapprehension, that does not invalidate the conclusion that the right to firearms ownership is real and present.

[Interestingly, conservatives should be the first people lining up to complain about the extent of second amendment rightsj, because it was an interventionist court in the 1930's that first separated the Second Amendment right from a purposive connection to a militia. Apparently judicial activism is only bad when it doesn't benefit you.]

Uh,rabid skunks??Rabies problem here.You can goggle Rabies outbreak in Boone co Ark.
I'm not going to take on a rabid animal with a stick,a bull had rabies!!
My next door neighbor had Meth heads break in her house.There was a physical confrontation and her friend got hurt trying to fight with them.
I have a gun for self defense,Tweakers and rabid skunks,want to fight them hand to hand?
it would take the cops thirty minuets to get to my house.
In some cases people don't need a gun,but I do and I'm keeping it.

No, no, no. This is idiotic.

What needs to be answered is how many inocent people die a year by fire arms in a country with gun control (say Japan) and how many inocent people die a year in the US? That's the question relevant to a government. If the difference was little, maybe your trap argument would work, but it isn't.

The problem with some questions is that they couch so much ignorance right there within them that the realization hits you like a ton of bricks that there's nothing you'll be able to say that they'll understand.

Trying to come up with equivalent idiocy:
Why do you need life insurance?

Perhaps a few that would be too flippant/sarcastic to work and would require too much home-turf thought for them to understand:
Why does the Andromeda galaxy need to exist?
Why does the sky need to be blue?
Why do you need to put a coat on when its -10F?

You can pack enough insult-to-intelligence in one sentence behind a question mark to where the only thing a person can do with it is ask another question back: are you high? For some reason not dancing to their beat, falling backward over yourself trying to please them, or not summoning up a 20 page research paper on demand means - to them - that you lost the argument and that they're right. At the same time its hardly worth being 'right' when they utter a few words and get a 40 minute free matinee out of you, and rather than ever admitting your right they'll act like they didn't notice it, they'll act like they didn't understand a word of it (or instantaneously realized you were right and replaced it with missing time so they'd never have to remember it), or tell you that 14 minutes in you mispronounced 'the' somewhere.

Its really a demand fallacy (rope-a-dope in reverse), one which gets worse that they're trying to get a 1:50 you to them effort ratio to just make you blow your top. If they get that result they think they won as well.