How do people advocating gun control expect gun bans to be enforced? Guns can only be taken away, and prevented from spreading by *other* people with guns, either through explicit use of force, or at the very least through the *threat* of force and the availability of guns to back up that threat when necessary. Most libertarians believe in the right to self defense, but all are opposed to the *initiation* of force, which is what gun control advocates propose.
It essentially corresponds to a preemptive strike, private citizens who own guns are feared so we'll get our own people to use force to take away their guns before they can hurt us. The assumption is that the ends justify the means. Yet the philosophy behind that doesn't seem any different from the gang philosophy most of those people would argue against. A street gang would advocate using its guns to disarm other gangs who might harm them.
In what way are we different then if we propose our "gang" (government) preemptively uses its guns against innocent private citizens to prevent them from owning guns? The justification apparently is that because we fear those people, and we are in the majority, we are allowed to do what we wish to the minority to calm our fears. It doesn't matter that harmless people are being presumed guilty. Why is it that the rights of a minority are desired to be taken away simply because the majority is able to do so?
In reality gun control it doesn't seem to be argued based on any reasoned philosophy other than "majority rule" (by a "moral majority"?). The idea seems to be, we outnumber them, so we get to take away their guns. The attitude is that might makes right. Its just that might is determined by counting numbers at the ballot box rather than on opposing sides of a fight. Where is the difference is between this and the gang mentality? It is argued that the opposition gangs (the non- government ones) will hurt us so we need to disarm them before they disarm us.
Many in favor of gun control feel that violence tends to attract more violence. Yet they then require the *government* to use violent methods in order to take away people's guns. The police need to use force to defend other people's rights when they are in danger from violent criminals. Yet why should the government be preemptively using violence to achieve the goals of gun control advocates using the same philosophy as the criminals they object to?
If you advocate gun control, consider this concrete question . Some people who keep arms only for self defense believe strongly enough in this right that they will not surrender their arms peacefully. Would you advocate the use of deadly force if necessary to take away guns from these people who have never committed any crime? Are you really justified in killing harmless people because of your own fears?
Is there some other way you would propose to force these people to conform to your wishes? This question cannot be dismissed as theoretical, there *are* people who feel this way.
Some people honestly oppose the use of guns and wouldn't use one to defend themselves even if they had one. Other people do own guns to protect themselves. There cannot be enough police to *prevent* all crime and defend everyone without a complete big- brother police state watching everyone all the time. In the end it is up to each individual to be responsible for protecting their own life.
People may not chose to own a gun , but at least they have the option to do so if they wish, and have some control over how they choose to protect their own life. Gun control advocates wish to take away that control and not give them the option to save their own lives. What right do you have to tell a harmless person "No, you can't choose to defend yourself because I don't want you to be able to, I know what's best for you. Never mind that your father saved his life with a gun back before gun control, or that your cousin was killed last week because he wasn't allowed to own a gun. I don't want to own a gun so I'm going to get other people with guns to take yours away as well (and leave you at the mercy of criminals who will still own illegal guns, but that's your problem)."
Some gun control advocates seem to feel people have a right to control over their own lives, including ending them (ala Dr. Kevorkian, Final Exit, etc.). Yet why shouldn't those same people have a right to decide they don't want their lives ended, that they'd like to be able to protect themselves and potentially save their own lives? Perhaps it isn't the choice you would make, but that shouldn't matter. There doesn't seem to be any logical argument (no handwaving allowed), that ownership of an object infringes on another persons rights in the way that theft or murder or other crimes do. Remember that *use* of a gun to harm someone is different from ownership.
Why do we need to "give" people the right to own a gun?
One odd question that some people ask is "what right does anyone have to own a gun"?
What right does anyone have to own a radio, or a blender, or a
potato? In a free society this question sounds rather odd. The
assumption is usually made that by default people have the right to
own whatever they wish, or do whatever they wish, as long as those
actions don't infringe on the rights of others. People don't need to be
given an explicit "right to own a computer", its just an example of the
right to private property. People have a right to own things that
might possibly cause harm (like a kitchen knife, scissors, axes, a
bathtub someone might slip in). If you asked someone "what right
do you have to own a television?" the question would likely be "what
right do you have to tell me I can't?" .
It seems that those proposing restrictions on gun ownership at least acknowledge they are proposing restricting people's rights and not just ignore the existence of property rights. They need to explicitly answer the question "What right do you have to take away people's right to own a gun?". In a free society, even if you do not approve of a particular action which isn't harming anyone directly, the default assumption should be that people have a right to that action until it is decided to explicitly take away that right.
It is true that rights are restricted to prevent one person from infringing on the rights of another. We have a right to free speech, but we aren't allowed to libel another person without risk of punishment. However, we have a right to think whatever we wish, or write whatever we wish for our own personal use. Its only when someone actually publicly distributes something libelous that they done something wrong. We haven't abolished newspapers for fear something libelous will be printed. (Despite "the pen being mightier than the sword" :-) )
If we did this we would be presuming them guilty of a crime before one was even committed. I suppose someone might eventually suggest requiring every newspaper to be reviewed by the government before it is published. Yet this would still be effectively assuming the newspaper was going to be guilty of something, and preventing it from acting before it proved its innocence. This sort of "prior restraint" isn't currently allowed. Once you begin assuming everyone is guilty, or potentially going to commit a crime, and requiring them to prove their innocence before they act, where do you stop?
The rationale for taking away people's right to own guns is that those people *might* use them to commit a crime. This appears to be founded entirely on the philosophy that all these people are guilty unless they are proven innocent (yet somehow govt. employees must somehow apriori be "innocent" unlike mere citizens since they would be allowed to possess guns), which I think is a dangerous precedent. It helps propagate a world view of suspicion and fear, where its thought everyone might potentially be out to harm you if you don't do something to control them beforehand. This may seem to be out of proportion to the current state of our society, yet I think subtle psychological attitudes prevalent in many people can have a real macroscopic effect on society as a whole. This "presumed guilty" mentality seems to be increasingly common in our media and government.
A better strategy may be to consider harsher penalties (which are actually served) for crimes committed with guns, rather than attempting to control gun ownership. Its the violence which is the problem, not the gun ownership itself. Realistically it isn't really possible to prevent criminals who wish to own guns from acquiring them illegally, it will be the law abiding citizens who would abandon guns voluntarily.
Gun control attacks a symptom, not the real issue
Those advocating gun control might consider whether
they are attacking the real problem or merely a symptom of the
current values of our society. The only long term, real solution to
dealing with violence is to voluntarily persuade people to change
their values and to realize the problems with violence and the subtle
ways in which they promote or condone the use of force within our
society.
You cannot legislate societal values even if you wished to (which libertarians oppose), its not possible to legislate what people think. Society basically functions because most people voluntarily adhere to a shared set of values that allow them to cooperate. If most people didn't believe in voluntarily following the law, there is nothing that could be done to stop them. In the LA riots so many people abandoned civilized behavior there was nothing realistically that could be done about it (without alot of outside assistance, meaning if it were widespread throughout the country it could not be handled). During prohibition the government was unable to prevent the use of alcohol, just as the government now is unable to prevent the spread of illegal drugs. In a free society there are just too many ways for people to voluntarily cooperate to bypass any restrictions.
In order to survive, society requires most people to voluntarily agree with and uphold the laws. In fact a fairly small minority can prevent a law from being enforceable in practical terms (due to the fact that we don't have a big-brother type police state with everyone monitored all the time, which is what it would take to enforce a law if enough people disagree with it
How would gun control advocates propose realistically controlling guns? Won't it lead to guns in the hands of the criminals, but not in the hands of the law abiding citizens to defend themselves? "Victim disarmament" is what many people consider to be the true end result of gun control. In a country as large and free as ours it seems that the desire to control guns is nothing but wishful thinking. Legislating something to be true won't necessarily make it so.
It is natural to wish to influence other people to make the world a better place to live. There only appear to be two ways to get other people to behave as you wish, voluntary persuasion or the use of force. Libertarians think voluntary persuasion is superior to the use of force (even if that force is backed by the majority).
The right to bear arms is necessary to ensure a free people
remain free
Some people object to the idea that citizens of a free society need a
right to bear arms in order to ensure they remain free. One argument
they make is that our government is not oppressive or dictatorial, we
live in a democracy and we don't need to worry about needing guns.
The problem is that we may not need to worry now, however people
wish to be prepared for the future. Many people in the past lived in
countries where they didn't think their rights would be taken away.
"It can't happen here" is wishful thinking, which may be true but it
seems better to be prepared than to make it much easier for the
government to go astray.
One of the major arguments people have with this is that in this age of jet fighters and modern weapons, the type of weapons private citizens own would be no match for a government anyway. This is true if the issue were a clear cut one of superior firepower. However it misses an important point.
Even if the values of the people in government somehow became such that they condone an oppressive government, that transition probably wouldn't happen completely all at once. The military, and the government, are made up of people who have friends and family throughout society. It would be much harder for an oppressive government to order its troops to go into battle against its own citizens, shooting against their own countrymen, friends and family, than it would be for them to lock up unarmed protesters.
In addition, public reaction against a government which fights against its own people would probably be negative and help lead people to refusing to support the production and economic infrastructure required by that government. This is one method the public would use to eventually take back its country without owning jet fighters. Yet they might well need handguns to keep free and be able to resist during this process.