Anonymous 19 October 2015 at 21:12
-->I think misleading statistics are rampant on both sides. But the reason I brought up car deaths was to illustrate that applying a cost-benefit analysis to gun deaths requires considering their benefits as well as their costs.
How would you feel about an environmentalist who argued that cars should be banned because they kill too many people? That's roughly how I think gun owners feel when gun control activists bring up the public health critique of guns.
Thomas R. Wells 19 October 2015 at 22:05
-->"How would you feel about an environmentalist who argued that cars should be banned because they kill too many people? That's roughly how I think gun owners feel when gun control activists bring up the public health critique of guns."
I'm sure you're right, but my guess is that the benefits of car use are material and palpable, while the benefits of gun ownership are immaterial and psychological. I use the example of seat belts and speed limits when talking about public health issues (I'm a physicians and medical school instructor) -- years ago car companies applied a kind of military cost/benefit analysis to seat belts, and decided that the public would accept the extra deaths that result from no seat belts rather than pay a couple of hundred dollars extra for a car with seat belts. It took legal action to require manufacturers to include seat belts, and the public acquiesced. Lowering top speed limits to 55 mph during the oil/gas crisis in the 1970s lowered death rates in car accidents, but the public felt that the increased rates of death from raising the speed limit back to 60 or 65 were worth the convenience of faster travel. Presumably gun ownership supporters also feel that the rates of gun-related injury and death are acceptable given the benefits, however intangible, of gun ownership.
The cars-guns comparison is also seductive, I think, because it includes very immediate and often personal costs and benefits. Environmentalists seem to have a tough time making strong cases for action because, at least in part, the costs of change are immediate but the benefits are remote and often indirect.
In any case, your essay's primary points are powerful and compelling, and I hope they become part of the public debate.
David Taylor, MD, PhD 19 October 2015 at 22:55
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"On the other hand, the goal itself is all wrong. Where every citizen must retain responsibility for upholding the law and judging the use of deadly force, every individual must be a hero (or else a villain), in a pre-political Homeric world in which society is no more than a band of heroes. This is neither attractive nor feasible nor Lockean. A society fit only for heroes is not a fit society to live in, but rather resembles a nostalgic fantasy of movies of the Wild West."
There is nothing heroic about exercising the right of self defense. It's a common ability of all living creatures. It is foreign to you because you are domesticated livestock and you had your claws and teeth removed at a young age.
Your position is invalid as all forms of gun control are enforced by humans with guns, and given that the nation-state has a well documented history of being the greatest mass murderer, it's quite foolish.
" Rather it is the relations between citizens that suffer most in an armed society. "
That has not been my experience.
People are much nicer in gun country.
A Critic 17 October 2015 at 21:40
-->I second your final analysis
To add: not from fear, but because one who is willing to stand up for their unalienable rights respects themselves and respects others. I think this is the underlying idea behind the "An armed society is.." maxim: people that are politically, socially and historically aware know the consequences of apathy and thus the incremental diminution of intrinsic rights. They *respect* each other knowing everyone else is doing their part to maintain a bulwark against tyranny. (and yes, tyranny is very, very real).
It is not living in fear, but living in confidence that people do have the power to steer the rudder of this country if they need to. *Insert previous idea about US military being all powerful*
Just look at the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 13 years. Two countries put together which probably comprise a total land mass of say, CA and NV. Yet not only the US, but a coalition of many powerful first-world countries has been unable to bring the dog to heel. Combine that with the fact that our forces were galvanized by the attacks of 9/11 (whoever was responsible) and cohesive: do you (author) really think every colonel and captain and sergeant and private in the various branches of the US military are complete mercenaries? Many are I'm certain, but a new civil war would also see a schism in the armed forces. Much of that hardware would find its way into the hands of retired veterans who could utilize the training they received and propagate it among willing and capable individuals in order to create a desultory conflict. Just look at the example of Arminius.
Anonymous 18 October 2015 at 11:24
-->This is a fairly articulate example of the argument the author is talking about. I will try to give an articulate example of the hypothetical counter-argument: It's not worth it. Whatever value those who own guns get from owning guns is not worth the death and mayhem easy access to guns produces in society.
You argue that your guns defend you from government tyranny, but the government is on your side. It is the vast majority of your fellow citizens that are opposed to you. It is the vast majority of your fellow citizens that you harm with your intransigence over gun control.
The number of people killed in mass shootings, or even in shootings in general, may be relatively small. But the psychological impact on society is large. On many mornings when I send my little boy off to daycare, for a split second I wonder if today will be the day Crazy #73 decides to trump the horror of Newtown and target toddlers. Just the fact that the possibility must be seriously considered is national tragedy. One for which you are, I am sorry to say, at least complicit.
Toothless Bob 19 October 2015 at 17:52
-->Iraq and Afghanistan went tits up for very complicated reasons very specific to the countries involved and to point to them is cherrypicking. The US military is in control of American infrastructure (communications, electricity, roads, technology) which is just as important as firepower. They would be in a position of vast superiority to citizens with assault rifles and who have no unification or hierarchy, nor military training (not just 'how to fire a rifle' but tactics, discipline, teamwork and support staff). An armed US citizenry would get massacred by the US military (and these reasons explain in part the failures in the Middle East to overcome relatively organised militia).
[To last para:] I think this idea defeats your overall opinion. I think you are a bit naive in considering the US might slip into 'tyranny' with an objectively evil person in charge of the country against which *most* citizens would oppose. The hypothetical would be that in the event of tyranny, it would not be a case of 'citizens vs government', it would be a messier case of 'citizens and factions of government vs other citizens and other factions of government'. Civil war is complex. Tyranny would result in utter chaos. Large parts of citizens, government and military would agree with the tyrannical position and large populations would disagree. Granting 2nd amendment rights would not be 'giving the citizens a chance' it would be adding more guns to both sides.
Also, tyranny is 'very, very real'? Can you name one example in the post-WWII developed world of a vibrant relatively open democracy reverting to autocracy? I can't understand why US citizens cannot just trust the political process (having guns contributes to *distrust*). Every other OECD country does and does so without problems. If every gun advocate instead focussed energy on having debate over policy and government control in areas that actually matter (e.g. privacy, control over media, discrimination) rather than towards having a very low-grade contingency plan in the unlikely event that tyranny takes over, the US would not have to worry about tyranny in the first place.
If you want to be a bulwark against tyranny, prevent it from happening in a peaceful and bloodless way (debate and staying informed) rather than using brutish tactics of threat and force. Do both you might say? Doing both is very unnecessary and very costly health-wise.
Francis Maxwell 19 October 2015 at 14:42
-->@Anon 11.24
You go further than A Critic. Worryingly far, as noted quite eloquently by Maxwell, since revolution can only be justified if it has a reasonable chance of bringing about a better government. Denying the government's ability to rule some part of its territory by a campaign of terrorism, as in Afghanistan or Iraq, does not suffice. Putting your country to the sword because the government doesn't show you the precise kind of respect you think you deserve is a rejection of the very idea of political community and the compromises necessary to it.
The question is, are you a Lockean revolutionary ready to overthrow a worse than no government in order to install a better? Or are you an anarchist simply against government in principle? Because if you find America in 2015 a borderline tyrannical regime (rather than a merely eminently improvable one) one wonders what government ever established could satisfy you.
Thomas R. Wells 19 October 2015 at 23:17
-->"Can you name one example in the post-WWII developed world of a vibrant relatively open democracy reverting to autocracy?"
Zimbabwe is a good example within my personal experience. I'm sure there are others.
Being a responsible gun owner is not a "feeling." It's a recognition of the rights and responsibilities of being a free citizen. If you can't trust your citizens with firearms, then why would you trust police or soldiers drawn from your general population?
While it's true that average citizens couldn't stand against the US Army... they wouldn't have to. Who do you think joins the Army? Young men, given rifles by their fathers, taught to take their responsibility and their liberty seriously.
One philosopher we are taught at the academies is John Stuart Mill. Every cadet memorizes this quote:
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
I don't mean to communicate disrespect to the author or other commentators, but simply to share the perspective that the rights and responsibilities of liberty can not be delegated to the State without loosing something essential to their maintenance.
David Rogers 19 October 2015 at 20:13
-->"If you can't trust your citizens with firearms, then why would you trust police or soldiers drawn from your general population?"
Then the question is, if you won't trust the soldiers and police selected from the general population with guns, why should you expect your fellow citizens to trust you with them?
This is one point I have been trying to make, that gun rights introduce fear and mistrust between citizens.
The other point was to emphasise the scope for strong citizenship beyond the second amendment. I think unarmed activists from Susan B Anthony to Martin Luther King are examples of the Millian spirit you mentioned, prepared to stand up and fight for the right and the good at whatever personal cost. And I think such unarmed heroes have generally achieved more for America, exactly because they directed their struggle towards winning over their fellow citizens rather than against the legitimacy of the government itself.
PS nice example (though one could quibble about its similarity with America now rather than America in 1820).
Thomas R. Wells 19 October 2015 at 22:49
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US has 40 times higher rate of gun deaths than the UK.
US had 5 times higher rate of murders than UK.
US has 12 times higher rate of gun deaths than Australia.
US had 4 times higher rate of murders than Australia.
US has 5 times higher rate of gun deaths than Canada.
US had 3 times higher rate of murders than Canada.
It is a WHOLE lot easier to kill someone with a gun from 20 feet away than up close and personal with a knife or hand-to-throat. Many FEWER murders would be committed in the US if people had to actually look their potential victims in their eyes and feel the risk of not succeeding in their dirty deed. And many FEWER suicides would be committed, along with the subsequent anguish felt by friends and family, if depressed individuals actually had to work at killing themselves.
So the Public Health Argument does work and the Scared of My Government and Everyone I See So I Must Be Armed argument is just a lame excuse of the gun zealots.
mikesn5va 19 October 2015 at 20:36
-->"So the Public Health Argument does work"
Who does does it work on exactly? Seems like - and see Anon's reply above - it only persuades those who already agree with you.
It doesn't even persuade me and I believe in gun control. If you want to avoid America's high murder rate you pretty much can by (being able to afford to) living in a nice middle-class neighbourhood. As for suicide, do you really need the government to stop you from keeping a gun in the house?
Thomas R. Wells 19 October 2015 at 22:19
-->Thomas - indeed few arguments will work against the "other side" on the subjects of gun control, abortion, global warming, and the like. The Public Health Argument is for those who make the laws. Unfortunately U.S lawmakers can be bought and / or blackmailed with private money into making decisions that go against the desire of their majority constituents.
No argument against your statement that indicates most gun deaths occur in lower (economic) class areas. But how do we protect the innocent lower economic class citizens?
As far as those 22,000 American suicides per year I guarantee you the majority of those mothers, fathers, spouses, and children of those people would give almost anything to have their loved ones back. Granted if someone is adamant enough to kill themselves they will do it with a hangman's noose.But why make it so extra easy to do it with a handgun?
I am still finding it difficult to understand what so many gun-toting Americans are so scared of. Do citizens of other first world countries with strong handgun control laws actually take knives, TAZER's or pepper spray with them every time they go outside?
mikesn5va 20 October 2015 at 22:55
-->@mikesn5va
1. A liberal democracy places barriers in the way of a majority exerting their will over a minority, in this case gun rights believers, especially where that minority finds much at stake. Not getting your way is not in itself a sign that democracy is broken. (Besides this, America has several layers of democratic government. I don't understand why Americans obsess so much about the federal government, let alone the presidency, when there are so many things you don't need it for or that it can't do anyway.)
2. This is the kind of thing that Deweyan 'pragmatic liberalism' is good at. Experiment with multiple programmes attacking poverty and violence from school vouchers to better urban transport to end job deserts to restrictions on usury to giving cities power to take over rich suburbs to legalising hard drugs via a government monopoly. Refine and expand the ones that seem to work.
3. Suicide is sad, but that doesn't mean government legislation is the solution. Drug abuse is very sad too but the war on drugs is even sadder. Civil society is often able to do more about such problems and without the collateral damage of government power.
4. Depends how dangerous you think your neighbourhood is. But carrying any kind of weapon is generally illegal.
1. A liberal democracy places barriers in the way of a majority exerting their will over a minority, in this case gun rights believers, especially where that minority finds much at stake. Not getting your way is not in itself a sign that democracy is broken. (Besides this, America has several layers of democratic government. I don't understand why Americans obsess so much about the federal government, let alone the presidency, when there are so many things you don't need it for or that it can't do anyway.)
2. This is the kind of thing that Deweyan 'pragmatic liberalism' is good at. Experiment with multiple programmes attacking poverty and violence from school vouchers to better urban transport to end job deserts to restrictions on usury to giving cities power to take over rich suburbs to legalising hard drugs via a government monopoly. Refine and expand the ones that seem to work.
3. Suicide is sad, but that doesn't mean government legislation is the solution. Drug abuse is very sad too but the war on drugs is even sadder. Civil society is often able to do more about such problems and without the collateral damage of government power.
4. Depends how dangerous you think your neighbourhood is. But carrying any kind of weapon is generally illegal.
Thomas R. Wells 22 October 2015 at 21:54
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"Gun rights introduces fear between its citizens"
That might be how you feel. But when the government trusts me to do the right thing, I feel empowered to be a responsible citizen"
It seems like common sense to me that if the government trusts me to be able to protect myself, then I will be more likely to trust them. But if they don't trust me to do the right thing, then I should not trust them.
And as some other poster noticed. I feel inherently safer in states that have a higher rate of concealed carry permit holders, not less safe.
But again how "I" feel. Or how "You" feel should have zero impact on whether somebody should relinquish their rights.
If how I felt hand any relavence I could simply say that your article hurt my feelings and made me "feel" less safe and therefore you should be stripped of your first amendment rights?
-->I argued that the case for gun rights comes down to feelings - all that talk about trust and respect between citizens and government - and it is that case that gun control advocates should take on. I.e. they should do politics rather than seeking the faux objectivity of statistical science.
In your own way you also seek to avoid politics, the need to provide a justification for your favoured policy in terms your opponents can understand.
That might be how you feel. But when the government trusts me to do the right thing, I feel empowered to be a responsible citizen"
It seems like common sense to me that if the government trusts me to be able to protect myself, then I will be more likely to trust them. But if they don't trust me to do the right thing, then I should not trust them.
And as some other poster noticed. I feel inherently safer in states that have a higher rate of concealed carry permit holders, not less safe.
But again how "I" feel. Or how "You" feel should have zero impact on whether somebody should relinquish their rights.
If how I felt hand any relavence I could simply say that your article hurt my feelings and made me "feel" less safe and therefore you should be stripped of your first amendment rights?
John Dumke 20 October 2015 at 18:31
In your own way you also seek to avoid politics, the need to provide a justification for your favoured policy in terms your opponents can understand.
Thomas R. Wells 20 October 2015 at 23:15
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Most of us don't ask for guns to be banned; we want better screening of those who buy them. It won't solve the problem, of course, but is a reasonable move to at least keep assault weapons from being legally purchased by people known to be mentally unstable. We can't understand how this can be considered infringing on the rights of gun owners. You write of the feeling of having a gun in one's pocket. Many of us can understand and even appreciate that. We don't understand the ability of someone to legally purchase military assault weapons without some system of checks, when in many places we can't adopt a cat without proving we're responsible pet owners. We're so over-regulated and spied on here it astounds us that something like building weapons caches goes unquestioned.
I live in a lower socio-economic, quite small suburb of Chicago, one of which to where the gang and drug-affiliated violence has drifted over the past six or seven years. As opposed to one murder in the previous twenty five years, we've had six gunshot murders the past two, along with a number of shootings and drive-bys. These have all occurred within half a mile of my home, one less than 500' away. The area hospital covering the neighboring small community along with ours deals with multiple gunshot victims every night, almost all young men. I raised two sons here, back when fights were handled with fists. Now they seem to shoot each other as easily as if throwing a punch. It is very hard to remain unemotional about the gun issue when one is living it, but your essay challenged me to reconsider my views, if not necessarily to change them.
Anonymous 22 October 2015 at 23:36
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"Feeling safe" is not a right. Bearing arms is, as articulated in the Bill of Rights.
Anonymous 7 December 2015 at 02:43
-->@Anon. That seems circular. The Bill of Rights, the original amendment to the constitution, didn't descend from heaven. It was the product of political debate and remains so.
Thomas R. Wells 7 December 2015 at 09:56
