Slippery Slope or Non Sequitur????

As a psychologist, I cannot help but see at least part of this as a reasonable question. One might think that all killing is a result of hate, but that is not the case—especially when it comes to killing animals (or vegetables) for food. So the premise is incorrect. As for "violence," well I guess they have a point in that the act of animal slaughter is inherently violent no matter how you look at it.

"The recent shooter in Texas supposedly enjoyed shooting animals." There is scientific data on this (the hypothesis has been studied) and there is no clear connection between animal cruelty and killing humans, although it is not unreasonable to posit that one exists. "It makes sense, if you can kill a nonhuman, why not a human?" Again, it is a plausible hypothesis, but one that doesn't have enough support to be considered true.

One can argue that this is a slippery slope fallacy, but I would argue that if it is, it is a weak one at best. The reason is that there is only one step in the slope (killing animals to killing humans) and the leap is reasonable (so reasonable in fact that it remains an ongoing area of study with mixed results).

The problem with this argument is that they are basing their conclusion (we must end all violence) on an unproven hypothesis (that violence against animals leads to killing humans). In this sense, I favor the more generic non sequitur fallacy.

The first one that jumps out at me is a false equivalence . For someone living an agricultural life, shooting animals may be a necessity for something like food or pest control. And some people do get enjoyment from the challenge of it, but that is a very different thing from murdering a person.

Second one I noticed is a non sequitur . There is a statement, "the science is concerning." The justification that follows is an anecdote which doesn't have anything to do with science.