More On Gun Control
In an email Bettina states:
I mean, nothing is more clear than that: there are people who favor guns and the use thereof, and there are others, who don’t. I have lived in the US for four years, and had four years of opportunity to go to a store and get me a gun. So had a lot of my folks from Germany (where the purchase of guns is prohibited without proper formalities). How many people, did you think, took “advantage” of being able to buy one??????? One out of thirty.
Hmm so there are more than two categories. I for one favor guns, but not so that i can own them. I don’t own a gun and never plan to. This discussion is not about whether one should be able to use a gun for hunting and other non-murdering purposes, but rather the debate is about whether citizens have an undeniable right to weapons. In this regard, I must emphatically state yes.
My reasoning is simple: states choose to respect an unarmed citizenry, but states must respect an armed citizenry. Those in the state interested in taking away the citizen’s rights must seriously deal with fact that many in the citizenry will rebel using thier legally acquired firearms. Such considerations are not necessary when the citizenry is unarmed. The citizenry is at the whim of the state when unarmed.
Additionaly, prohibiting gun ownership forces one into the problem of relying on the state for protection. This slides the value of personal responsibility away from the individual and into the hands of the state. Through all of history, if there is one thing that is more true than anything else, it’s that when you take away responsibility from the person and place it the hands of the state everyone suffers. I have no reason to believe this will not be the case for firearms. Treating the right to being armed as unalienable contributes to the societal value of personal responsibility, which is to the benefit of everyone.
The fact that an armed citizenry is less likely to be oppressed and that individuals in this society will have a stronger value of personal responsibility are good reasons to strongly embrace the right to guns. What is not a good reason to support gun control is for the prevention of illegal gun use. Its a truism that those interested in breaking the law will not concern themselves with following laws. Thus, its unsurprising to discover that making it illegal to own guns will not dissuade would be criminals from using them. Thus, the only good reason for gun control laws never actually obtains when such laws are implemented.
Effectively, gun control fails to deliver on controlling illegal gun use, while still costing the citizenry the right to defend against tyranny and diminishing the societal value of personal responsibility. Thus I support the right to a gun ownership not so I can own one, but so that I may enjoy these other virtues the right confers.
September 25th, 2006 at 7:12 am
Every time I hear you make the pro-gun argument, I am eventually dissapointed. The idea of a well-armed citizenry to prevent governmental opression is a strong idea that I don’t really have an answer for (except to say that your dad’s hadngun isn’t going to do much against tanks and bomber planes, but I admit that’s a weak rebuke). However the ‘if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns’ idea has always failed for me. If gun control laws fail to remove guns form criminal hands, then why are there fewer gun-related crimes in countries like England where gusn are illegal? You seem to be making the assumption that law-enforcement agencies are incompetent and will fail to enforce these laws effectively.
September 25th, 2006 at 7:18 am
I do not think this neccessarily must be the case. If it was illegal for any citizen in the country to own a gun, you could have crack-downs of the types that we have for drugs.
Now, obviously we do have plenty of illegal drugs in this country. However, think about how many people in the US are in jail for drug-related charges. This shows that enforcement does happen on these types of illicit materials, even if enforcement is not 100% effective.
Now, imagine if we had that many people in jail for attempting to purchase a gun. By arresting people for possesion of or attempting to purchase a gun the same way we do with guns, we would take huge numbers of criminals off the street BEFORE they had a chance to use those guns to commit violent crimes.
If only outlaws have guns, then we get to arrest those outlaws for HAVING guns rather than for SHOOTING PEOPLE with those guns. That’s appealing to me.
But as I said, the ‘governments should be fraif of their people argument’ is still problematic for me. I just wish the dialogue focussed more on that and less on anecdotal evidence of grannies with uzis.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Hate the GUN, but love the gunner!