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It seems that for the purposes of this argument "prohibition" means any form of control other than the right to buy guns and to carry concealed handguns, the point being, according to Huener's argument, that the right to carry guns is interconditional with the right to self-defence, and that since people have the right to self-defence when outside their home, and that when outside their homes people favour concealed handguns, so therefore the possession of concealed handguns is a logical right extending from the right to self-defence.
This strikes me as sophistry, essentially; although the writer claims that he is not making a case for absolute rights, he is assuming as an absolute that the right to self-defence entails the right to do what the author feels is appropriate in the name of self-defence. After this bait and switch, the subsequent argument, that the impact of firearms as a positive outweigh those of self-defence as a negative, is a question not of rights but of utility, and not a very convincing one. So, what is to stop one from keeping around a rocket launcher, a tank or a nuclear weapon in the interests of self-defence, all of which have significantly increased the capacity of individuals and states to defend themselves over the years. Like firearms, nuclear weapons are almost never used, but provide significant deterrence. Therefore, logically, the right to carry nuclear devices should be universal. His rebuttal (objection #3) to this is weak in the extreme, as it demands a) that a device demonstrate a recreational or self-defence usage to be eligible for the right to be borne as a firearm is, even if the recreational usage is never exploited (for more on this, see below) and b) that the right to bear arms is based on the (arguable) status of the firearm as the single most effective means of self-defence available (that is, presumably, that the right is in fact not to carry guns, but to defend oneself with the most efficient possible tool, which must presumably be a large explosive device keyed to one's heartbeat), rather than anything fundamental to the gun (including its recreational uses). Arguably, there is a point at which one's expression of the right to self-defence is considered too infringing of the right of others. For example, generally people might be said to have a right not to be the subjects of violence, which would be infringed by the casual use of high explosive or nerve agents in the act of self-defence taken by an unconnected other against an unconnected other.
In which case, why draw the line specifically at firearms? If we look at what characterises the firearm, what can we ssee that marks it out from the knife or the tank?
1) The function of a firearm is to send a projectile at speed to a target at some distance.
2) That is the *only* function of a firearm - it can also be used to gather food, to pass the time intimidate, to deter attackers and to stir tea, but all these (except the final one) are based on the fact that its actual operative function is the acceleration of a projectile through space to strike a target.
The applications of the firearm could be anti-personnel, sporting (either target shooting or field sports) or have one of a couple of other applications, but again it is defined by its ability to strike at distance - when equipped with a gun, one is equipped with a means to kill at distance. This strikes me as quite similar to the possession of nerve agents or high explosive. One *can* argue that the gun has a greater clarity of affect than nerve agents, but one might equally say that, once discharged, a bullet travels until it strikes something (an intervening object or the ground). Therefore, a firearm, once discharged, cannot be guaranteed to strike the intended target - it lacks specificity, in a way that, for example, a breadknife does not.
So, it feels to me like the idea that by preventing people from carrying firearms, one is in effect conspiring to murder them, is invalid unless one is prepared to challenge the same prevention of the possession of tanks, bombs, bombs, guns, in your head, in your head and they are fighting on the same terms. In effect, one has to admit that the right to self-defence can be abrogated by social contract. The social contract in the UK, for example, is that we ask individuals not to possess unlicensed firearms, or carry concealed weapons *of any kind* (knives, knuckle dusters, stunguns, guns, tanks, bombs, bombs, guns, in your head etc), and offer in exchange the greatest possible surety that the persons around you will be similarly constrained, in part by having an unambiguous prohibition against the aforementioned.
The alternative the author of the paper implies is a model where, if any person likely to use their firearm for a purpose other than recreation or self-defence is surrounded by a large number of people unlikely to use their firearm for any purpose other than recreation or self-defence, then the balance will always tilt towards the upholding of the right to self-defence, and all will be well. I am unconvinced that this is a defence of a right, rather than a consequentialist analysis of the consequences of the right to self-defence being defined in a particular fashion.
Much is also made of the function of firearms outside that of infringing others' right not to be attacked - a gun may be for sport, or simply to satisfy a desire to own one or more guns. So, buying a gun might be an act equivalent to buying, say, a kettle - one entirely separate from any use of the gun as a weapon.
I propose, therefore, a restricted Seller Reponsibility principle which holds that a seller is responsible for the criminal use of his product only if (i) the product has no morally legitimate uses, (ii) on the information available to the seller, there is a substantial probability, in an individual sale, that the buyer intends to use the product in a morally objectionable manner, or (iii) the seller willfully or negligently fails to take reasonable steps to reduce the chances of selling to criminal users. Condition (i) [323] does not apply to firearms. While (ii) and (iii) can apply to gun sales, they need not. Hence, although some wrongful gun sales undoubtedly occur, there is no reason to believe all gun sales to be wrong.
This depends on an absolutist position being taken re: the application of the potential usage of the weapon. When selling a weapon, if one believes that the probability of the gun being used for sport or display outweighs the possibility that it might be used for immoral purposes. Again, the way the UK handles this is illuminating. If one can demonstrate *to a particular extent* that one's purchase of a firearm is for a non-felonious purpose (for example, one is a farmer, a grouse hunter or a member of a sporting gun club), one may purchase the firearm. If one can propose no good reason (that is a reason not inolving the use of the firearm to threaten, injure our kill, either in offence *or* self-defence), then one is not alowed legally to purchase or own the firearm.
Of course, this depends on the idea that the purchasing of a firearm for "self-defence" is not a good thing, which he would strenuously deny. However, the question here is that of certitude. It is possible to determine with some licensing or regulation whether one is likely to be purchasing a gun for sport. It is rather harder to determine whether somebody with no recreational or vocational need for a gun is purchasing it for self-defence. In effect, "I am buying this firearm as an aid to my right to self-defence" means "I am buying this firearm in order to use it in those situations where I believe its use to be appropriate". So, we come back to a form of the kettle question - the unlicensed and unrestricted sale of firearms presupposes that a proliferation of firearms, to be used where the holders of those firearms believe it to be appropriate, is an unambiguous *good*, and thus that the right to purchase firearms is the duty to uphold a good. Frankly, I'm not sure that duck will hunt... |
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