According to the slippery slope argument, sometimes we should avoid doing something we want to do because doing so will inevitably start us down a path that leads to things we don’t want, and eventually lands us in a lot of trouble we can’t get out of.
This argument was used by Kurt Beswick, representing the N.H. Firearms Coalition, to oppose the “Red Flag Law” – the proposed Extreme Risk Protection Order gun control bill.
The Monitorquoted Beswick as saying, “It starts as a very simple, nice thing to do and it rolls downhill from there” (Monitor front page, Oct. 31). Downhill, it turns out, is a fascist or communist dictatorship. To demonstrate this, the group brought a poster with swastika and hammer-and-sickle icons on red flags and pictures of the bill’s sponsors to the legislative hearing.
The slippery slope argument has no validity. It assumes that we lack cognition and must roll down an incline like a marble. We are more capable and resourceful than that. We can adopt a promising proposal and then stop, going no further. We can even adopt a measure for a couple of years, assess its effects, then walk it partway or all the way back if we aren’t satisfied. Neither are we condemned to repeat the past. We can learn. We have all sorts of options and strategies to achieve what we want. Nobody should shy away from supporting a policy that he considers a nice thing to do. We need not act like helpless victims
DAVID HAGNER
Hopkinton