No, the process to do so in most states is prohibitive for most people. Even movie producers don't usually get a license to possess the real deal.
In that case, either: you didn't understand what the author of the textbook was saying, the author of the textbook didn't understand the argument, or the author of the textbook didn't understand whatever logical fallacy she was attributing to that phrase.
Not exactly the same, but I'd grant they're likely analogous. However, one could reasonably and consistently be a proponent of gun rights, including the right of private citizens to freely and without restriction own grenade launchers, rocket launchers, artillery, etc. while simultaneously being against private citizens being able to own nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.
Which is why the arguments cannot be literally
the same. Presumably there is some kind of scalar threshold series that factor into the arguments. I could agree that private citizens ought to have the right to own something that, if used to do so, could have the potential to kill 50 people at a time, but disagree that private citizens should be able to own something that has the potential to kill 500 people at a time, by pointing to the different danger thresholds in each case. The
explanation of the result in each case is the same, but explanations and arguments differ with respect to the direction of doxastic flow, and hence the argument for each could not be the same.
Wait...who said that's what the slogan in question argues? Read more carefully what I wrote in my previous post about this phrase...
But even if you were correctly construing the slogan "guns don't kill people, people kill people" (i.e. to mean that everyone should have guns), it wouldn't follow that a slogan of the same form, with "nukes" subbed in for "guns" would be a good argument for everyone owning nukes.
No, incorrect. This is only true of formal fallacies, where the form of reasoning guarantees that the argument is not valid. Most arguments depend on semantic content. If what you were claiming here were true, then valid argument forms would also be subject to the same principle. However, while this argument is sound:
P1: Socrates is a man.
P2: All men are mortal.
C1: Therefore, Socrates is mortal
This argument of the same form:
P1. Russia is a moon
P2: All moons are made of cheese
C1: Therefore, Russia is made of cheese
is merely valid. It is clearly not sound, since both premises (as well as the conclusion) are false.
There is arguably a difference in how diffuse the intent is behind pulling the trigger on a firearm, and pushing the button on an ICBM, and hence while it may be true that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," it may nevertheless be false that "nukes don't kill people, people kill people." This gets into some technical issues in philosophy of action, and I don't have the time or space to fully elucidate them. A good place to start is the SEP page on philosophy of action, which is here:
Action (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
However the argument about necessary degrees of intention turns out, though, the fact remains that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is not an argument for people owning guns. It's an argument
against restricting gun ownership as the real solution to the problem of murder. It's meant to counter a criticism leveled at gun ownership by those who would restrict firearm access. It's not meant as a positive argument for gun ownership.
