@Richmond Good question. (A) and (B) look very similar, but there is a key difference.
(A) suggests that law-abiding citizens rights are more important than the rights of criminals, while (B) says that the rights of law-abiding citizens should never be compromised in the process of restricting the action of criminals.
The passage is talking about creating a system that restricts a criminal's ability to purchase a gun, however, the concern is that it will make it harder for law-abiding citizens to purchase guns. By law, the criminals in question have surrendered their right to own a gun by committing a crime, so the rights of the criminals are not at issue. The two concepts at play here are protecting the rights of law abiding citizens and restricting the actions of criminals.
So (A) is wrong because the argument is making no reference to any rights held by the criminals, therefore there is nothing to weigh the law-abiding citizen's rights against. The argument weighs the benefits of restricting a criminal's behavior vs. infringing upon the rights of the innocent, which is what (B) gets at.
Does that help?
Julie-VAugust 16, 2019
Can you explain why (C) is incorrect? Thanks!
RaviAugust 16, 2019
@Julie-V,
Let's look at (C).
(C) says, "Legislation should not be enacted if no benefit could accrue to society as a result of that legislation."
The problem with (C) is that there is a benefit (society is being made safer by preventing the sale of guns to people likely to hurt others), so this principle does not fit the opposition to the new legislation. Thus, we can get rid of this choice.
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!
jcefalu88@gmail.comSeptember 15, 2020
I eliminated B because it referred to "potential" criminals, while the argument is pretty explicitly referring to current criminals, did I misinterpret?
