Bright lines or blurred lines? Universal background checks and the NRA slippery slope argument

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay analyzes and evaluates the slippery slope argument (SSA) as presented by the National Rifle Association. The work of argument scholars and informal logicians, particularly of Douglas Walton, provides the central interpretive and evaluative vocabularies enabling the most complete understanding of this argument. Evaluation of the argument is enabled both by the SSA critical vocabulary, as well by a dialogic approach that considers the NRA's SSA within the larger context of President Obama's public discourses on the issue. Analysis of the argument generates insights that enrich the theoretical foundations of SSA scholarship, and potentially contribute to a more reasonable public debate about gun rights and gun control.