Q8 - During the 1980's the homicide

[ebrickm2]

P: Rise in homicide rate
P: Weapon of choice is knife
P: such knives sold legally and widely
P: most homicide deaths from unpremeditated assault in family

C: Even if rates increasing, not result in deaths if not for prevalence of knives.

C2: Government to blame for lax safety

Answer choices-
A. Don't care about other means that can accomplish homicide.
B. We aren't concerned with the number, knowing that it exists is a fact, and that is all that is needed for the argument.
C. Don't care about other crimes committed with knives.
D. Deliberative? We don't care about the motivation for purchase.

So, despite the fact that the wrong answer choices are wrong for obvious reasons, I can't conclude why E is right through logical explanation.

Despite the increasing homicide rate, such homicides wouldn't result in deaths if it were not for prevalence of knives.

WHY? b/c...None of the premises seems relevant to the question, so there must be leap in logic.

Does the fact that the knives are common, as suggested in E, tell us why it wouldn't result in deaths. Not really.

Wud dah fugggg!

[bbirdwell]

Hmm. You are right that this question is most easily answered through process of elimination. (A)-(D) can be eliminated for logical reasons.

Between the wording of your question and the wording of the argument and answer choice, I'm a bit confused. Thus, let me just point out a couple of things that I think are relevant and you can tell me if I've answered your question, ok?

First of all, what you have listed as "C:" below is not quite right. It's not that rates of homicide are increasing, it's that rates of "unpremeditated assaults" are increasing. So an analysis of the argument looks more like this:

P: In the 80s, homicide rate rose 50%
P: Weapon usually a knife
P: Potentially lethal knives sold all around
P: Most homicides due to unpremeditated assaults within family
P: Even if such assaults increasing, probly no death if potentially lethal knives weren't around

C: Govt's fault for permitting potentially lethal knives to be sold

This is a complicated, and bad argument. The "even if... probably" statement is confusing, etc. The first four answer choices attempt to use smoke and mirrors to get you tangled up in the logic of all the premises.

(E) cuts right to the chase -- dealing directly with the rise of homicides in the 80s, and the family nature of the problem. If "potentially lethal knives" are household knives, these have always been available, so the rise in the 80s, therefore, can't be explained by this. If "potentially lethal knives" are actual weapons, these aren't in households!

This seriously weakens the central argument.

Does that make sense?

[ebrickm2]

Hmm. You are right that this question is most easily answered through process of elimination. (A)-(D) can be eliminated for logical reasons.

Between the wording of your question and the wording of the argument and answer choice, I'm a bit confused. Thus, let me just point out a couple of things that I think are relevant and you can tell me if I've answered your question, ok?

First of all, what you have listed as "C:" below is not quite right. It's not that rates of homicide are increasing, it's that rates of "unpremeditated assaults" are increasing. So an analysis of the argument looks more like this:

P: In the 80s, homicide rate rose 50%
P: Weapon usually a knife
P: Potentially lethal knives sold all around
P: Most homicides due to unpremeditated assaults within family
P: Even if such assaults increasing, probly no death if potentially lethal knives weren't around

C: Govt's fault for permitting potentially lethal knives to be sold

This is a complicated, and bad argument. The "even if... probably" statement is confusing, etc. The first four answer choices attempt to use smoke and mirrors to get you tangled up in the logic of all the premises.

(E) cuts right to the chase -- dealing directly with the rise of homicides in the 80s, and the family nature of the problem. If "potentially lethal knives" are household knives, these have always been available, so the rise in the 80s, therefore, can't be explained by this. If "potentially lethal knives" are actual weapons, these aren't in households!

This seriously weakens the central argument.

Does that make sense?

I don't even begin to understand this still. What part of the argument is the correct answer weakening? It doesn't seem to be directly addressing the conclusion that it's the government's fault for permitting the sale of knives. It seem more like an attack on the premises, b/c it could still be their fault for selling these household knives.

what do you mean in your explanation of E that the rise can't be explained by this?

Again, I am left wanting to bite my hand off. Is there a # I can call to talk this through, I don't know why this question frustrates me so.

[bbirdwell]

No, no phone number.
But you can always sign up for tutoring!

Simply put, the first part of (E) says that household knives have always been available.

This weakens the conclusion that the RISE of homicides in the 80s is due to the govt's permitting knives to be sold.

Why? Because things are the SAME as they have always been -- the RISE cannot be correlated to availability. Availability has been CONSTANT. Therefore something other than availability (due to govt permission) must have caused the rise.

How might you strengthen the same argument, in the same sort of way? You could say "the sale of knives was illegal until 1980." This would strengthen the idea that legal ("govt-permitted") availability of knives caused the rise in homicides...

[cyruswhittaker]

This question is giving me a lot trouble. Let me make sure I have it right. The argument is saying:

Homicide rates have risen by 50 %, many are knife-related, and most occur as a result of unpremeditated assaults. But despite that there are more of these unpremeditated assaults, if it wasn't for knives, then there wouldn't be so many deaths. [So the availability of the knives is what has resulted in a lot more of these deaths]. And thus the blame for this increase in deaths from unpremidated assaults is that the government allows these lethal weapons to be sold.

So essentially the author is making the point that the presumed increased deaths from assaults is because of the knives.

I think these are the reasons that I'm still confused by this problem:

*The "even if" part of the sentence. This makes it ambiguous to me as to whether the assaults actually increasing. I presume what the author is trying to say by adding "even if" is that he's narrowing down his argument to a particular cause.

*The way the causal relationship is stated with "if it were not." That seems to me like the author could be saying that this is a particular reason, but he doesn't explicitly form a causal assertion.

And regarding the attack on the availability of knives, it doesn't seem to really attack the argument very much. Perhaps the prevalence of the knives is the same, but some other factor is resulting in their prevalence to be more pronounced now (for example, if some weapon law went into effect, so more people are using knives now).

Any help or clarification would be greatly appreciated, as I'm still stuck on this problem after spending quite a bit of time on it.

[griffin.811]

Why are we so quick to dismiss A as out of scope here? One of the premises is that if the knives were not around, the deaths would not happen.

A seems to COMPLETELY destroy this premise. "Knives not around? Fine people will use guns instead"

I think the issue with A is not that it is out of scope, more so that may violate the "unpremeditated" clause in the stem. For one, A says a person who "intends" to cause death. (This is very misleading though. Someone can intend to kill in the moment, without having premeditated the killing).

As I'm typing this, the thing that sticks out to me most is poison. The use of poison it seems would have to be premeditated.

In my opinion, the test writers owe the test takers of PT18 an extra point, this was not the greatest written question, LSAT tricks aside...

[tommywallach]

Hey Griffin,

I think you're losing track of the core here.

Conclusion: All these knife deaths happen because the government allows too many knives to be sold.

Premises: Knives are sold everywhere. Most people die in houses. Most homicides are done with knives, which are in houses.


The problem with (A) is that this argument is only about knives. You're weakening a different conclusion. Here's the conclusion you're seeing:

Conclusion: Knives are killing people.
or
Conclusion: Knives should be stopped.

But those are not the conclusion. The conclusion is that the government is responsible for knife deaths. The fact that there are other ways to kill people actually has no bearing on whether or not the government is responsible for the homicides that are committed with knives.

Does that make more sense?

-t

[griffin.811]

Definitely mixed up the conclusion here

Your explanation makes perfect sense, given the conclusion. The fact that other weapons could be used seems wildly out of scope now.

Thanks!

[b16]

Griffin, I think you were actually on the right track.

The reason that A should be rejected is not because the conclusion limits the scenario to knives. The possibility of alternative weapons does attack the sub-conclusion that relies on the availability of knives as a cause of the deaths.

The reason A should be rejected is that it concerns premeditated homicides. You noticed the mention of poison, but the answer goes on to say "person who INTENDS to cause the death of another." A does not relate to unpremeditated assaults that accidentally result in death because a knife was involved and that is what the author wishes to prevent.

[nflamel69]

Good call! I was getting ready to argue for A. But I definitely read the premise wrong, I read it as premeditated assaults.

[einuoa]

I am still quite confused by answer choice E, if anyone could explain that further! :/

I understand how the first part "if the potentially lethal knives referred to are ordinary household knives, such knives were common before the rise in the homicide rate" would weaken the argument because if the knives in question are everyday household knives, how can you blame the government? But the second part confuses me a bit, "but if they are weaponry, such knives are not generally available in households," is this saying that these knives, like a katana for example, aren't usually in households, therefore people committing homicides within the family typically aren't using these lethal weapons, but something else? If this is the case, then the government also can't be blamed, because those knives aren't even that common.

Could anyone just confirm my thought process?

[maryadkins]

Yes! Good!

Put another way, if they are weaponry"”which is what the argument is saying they are ("the gov't allows such lethal weapons to be sold"), then they aren't IN households anyway!

[johndallas85]

I think this is an unusually poorly worded and unclear question. It seems that what's causing the confusion is the conclusion. What is the argument's conclusion, exactly? "Thus the blame lies with the permissiveness of the government that allows such lethal weapons to be sold." The blame for what? The blame for the deaths caused by the knives? Or the blame for the rise in the homicide rate? The text is not sufficiently clear.

Answer "E" relies on the latter interpretation, i.e. the government bears the blame for the rise in the homicide rate because it allowed the sale of knives, and thus if those knives were common in the past, there is no significant rise in knife sales to which the rise in homicide deaths could be attributed.

If you interpret the "blame" as being for just the knife deaths, however, "E" won't work because the fact that the knives have always been available doesn't make the government any less responsible for the deaths they cause.

[alexroark5]

I feel like I 90% understand this question. Opening it up to the forum in hopes that someone can fill in the gaps. I have read some online explanations for this question but did not see anyone mention the whole-to-part/part-to-whole flaw. Is that not happening in this question?

I thought that might have been the flaw to attack here.
The stimulus is saying:

Homicide rate increased by 50%
Usually the weapon used was a knife
Most deaths are b/c of unpremeditated assaults within family
unpremeditated assaults within the family would not result in deaths if it were not for knives
Deaths are govt's fault for not regulating knives

We are going from homicide rates in general, to a smaller subset of homicides that occur within the family. The unwarranted assumption being made is that because homicides in general are bc of knives, that homicides occurring within the family must also involve knives (what is true of the whole is true of the part). So I looked for an answer choice that matched my pre-phrase of saying that hey maybe knives aren't involved in household homicides. That is why I almost selected A until I realized it was out of scope bc we are dealing with murders that are not premeditated (those tricky bastards). Eventually I did end up selecting the correct answer in answer choice E.

If most homicides involve a knife and most homicides occur within the family then the only thing we can conclude is that some homicides within the family involve a knife. Right? So it could be true that most homicides within the family do not involve knives, in fact maybe only a very very small percentage of unpremeditated domestic assaults involve knives. I feel like if you don't realize that knives don't have to be prevalent in unpremeditated domestic assaults, then you would have a hard time selecting E on account that it would seem to challenge a stated premise in the stimulus which is not the right way to weaken an argument on the LSAT.

What are your guys' thoughts on this one? A(once i realized the scope) C and D were very easy for me to eliminate. Got a little hung up on B in terms of how it affects the argument. But even if these assaults were underreported that would still have no effect on the argument right?

But mostly what are the meat and potatoes so to speak of this argument. Is it not to realize that there is a whole-to-part flaw that is happening??

[eiwon21]

I think this question is confusing because of its question stem. Please correct me if I am wrong but it allows for either a Define the flaw answer OR a If true, would weaken answer.

For instance, D is an answer choice that would usually be seen on a flaw question: "the argument assumes without justification ....."

Yet for E, it is providing us with a statement that, IF TRUE, would weaken the argument. Only if we were to assume the truth of answer choice E would we be able to say it Weakens the argument. It may have been more consistent (and easier to spot) as a Flaw answer if E instead said "the argument fails to consider that the number of knives available in households has not increased since prior to 1980s."

Is it fair to see this question type as a mixed identify the flaw+weaken question? As in, the answer allows for either type of answer choice- it just happens that the correct answer is an "if true would weaken" answer choice.