Consistency checking

Fig. 1: Not an inconsistency

Those familiar with Reddit know that inconsistency memes are very popular.  This is because consistency checking is a dominant form of criticism.  You cannot, after all, be for one thing but against another similar thing.  It’s a contradiction.  A contradiction cannot be, and if you support the one but not the other, you’re a scumbag, or just daft.  So it does double duty: it challenges a view as untenable while characterizing the holder of the view as dishonest, or an idiot.

There is nothing wrong with that, of course.  Provided that the inconsistency is a real one.  So many inconsistencies aren’t.

Here, I think, is a real one:

This at least shows that the 2nd Amendment advocates featured have to show a difference between rights of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th amendment rights and 2nd Amendment rights. This probably isn’t impossible, but it’s not obvious either.