Perhaps the longest sustained non sequitur ever.

There are many sides to the gun-control debate that is raging right now, and I don't mean that there are sides that are for greater regulation and sides against (thought that is also true).  What I mean is that some are arguing for banning this sort of weapon but not that; others are arguing that high-capacity magazines should be regulated rather than the guns themselves; others are interested in discussing background checks rather than criminalizing possession.  One of the more interesting--and more subtle--parts of the debate has to do with the term 'assault weapon'.  The term is hazy, and often mistaken for a synonym of 'automatic'.  In fact, the current legal definition (at least in practice) includes semi-automatic weapons.  This, however, may lead one to think that an assault weapons ban would include all semi-automatic weapons.  However, many (most?) handguns are also semi-automatic (which simply means that the gun automatically loads a new cartridge after firing).  It seems clear that part of the gun-control debate will have to include a clearer categorization of gun-types (this would be a good idea even if no new legislation follows).  Maureen Martin posted an article at the Daily Caller last week explaining intelligently the problem with the current legal nomenclature regarding guns.  You would think the natural conclusion of such an article would be that we need to sort out the classification of gun-types before we discuss regulation.  Instead, what follows does not follow at all (hence, the non sequitur in the title of this post).

Martin may be correct, but usually what is contained must be mentioned in the premises--otherwise your conclusion is entirely irrelevant.  Nevertheless, her article contains no statistics concerning gun restrictions and violence, gun restrictions and mass murder, gun restrictions and gun murder rates.  She finishes my asking us to "carefully consider overly simplistic cures."  I think I'll take her advice and carefully and with consideration ignore her article.