One of the graduation requirements at San Jose State was that students had to take a course in “critical thinking.” Different departments offered a variety of courses to meet the requirement; in the Political Science Department our course was entitled “Controversial Legal Issues” Among the subjects we covered were fallacies often used in debates, including the “slippery slope” argument.
The slippery slope argument basically states that once we start down a slippery slope, other actions will inevitably follow. If we ban child porn, soon we will ban all porn, and if we ban all porn, we will soon ban any mention of sex, and then anything critical of the government, and then we wipe out the First Amendment.
What made me think of this is the N.R.A. argument that if we ban assault weaponry and high capacity clips, we will soon be banning shotguns and hunting rifles.
I have yet to hear of a gun sanity supporter who wants to ban hunting rifles. I am sure that some Americans would like to ban every gun, but that is not the proposal of the Biden group or the vast majority of gun sanity advocates.
The irony is that assault rifle sales were banned for ten years before being permitted again during the second Bush administration. In that time hunters, including me, had no problems. The second irony is that we are not allowed to possess RPGs or surface-to-air missiles; nonetheless we still have our rifles and pistols and shotguns.
Remember, the slippery slope argument is considered a fallacy. Perhaps stupidity would be a better word.
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