"To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the law abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless."
~ attrib. Lysander Spooner
11 comments:
Anonymous
said...
"To ban speeding because poor drivers speed and crash is to tell the good drivers that their rights and liberties depend not on their own driving ability, but on the driving ability of the unskilled and dangerous"
Terry you are... right. Yet I'm wrestling with where the original quote bothers me. I don't wish to argue that anyone should ban guns. The conduct of the guilty and lawless absolutely impacts the liberties we can afford to provide to the law abiding.
Anonymous: The original quote is meant to bother you. The proper way to look at it is that a society cannot afford not to recognize the rights of those who respect the rights of others, making liberty the default state, which government is charged to uphold. The question of what liberties should be *afforded* properly only pertains to those who who violate the rights of others.
Terry - does your last sentence mean that an 18 year old who’s psychologically disturbed and displaying aggressive tendencies, and shown no interest firearms for any food gathering or pest control or sporting reason, should still be able to go and buy a military style firearm without question - provided they haven’t committed a crime yet?
I ask this as a firearms owner who not so long ago had to go through a 3-4 hour interview at my home, including a private discussion with my wife about whether she ever felt unsafe with me, before I was able to get my *existing* licence renewed for another 10 years. As tiring and annoying and over the top as this was, I didn’t resent the principle that I had to establish I was responsible enough to get the licence renewed. For the same reason I didn’t resent having to pass a driving test when I was 17 before being allowed to drive.
Mark: My bad. In my last sentence I should have written that the question of what liberties should be afforded properly only pertains to those who do not have the will or capacity to respect the rights of others, including those who have violated to rights of others.
If a psychologically disturbed person who is aggressive has a diminished capacity to respect the rights of others, then whether they should bear arms becomes a question of whether to recognize that right or not, and I like you would lean towards not.
What I was objecting to is the idea that rights are afforded to those understand and respect them. In that case, they are not afforded, they are had and their recognition reciprocated.
It's worth considering what Rand had to say on the matter.
"[Gun control] is a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people — they are not carried for hunting animals — and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is going to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim."
Duncan Bayne: Rand also acknowledged that, "Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them." [Ford Hall Forum, 1971]
Thanks for that reminder on what Rand thought. Applying that principle to military semi-automatics would mean a ban on them is probably reasonable, because they’re unnecessary for hunting and self defence (except in war). Handguns by contrast do have a self defence role. Except for low calibre .22’s useful for rabbit control (which were exempt from NZ’s recent ban) the main purpose of other semi autos is to kill a lot of people quickly.
On the other hand, Switzerland requires all men to have firearms training as part of their military service, and has high firearms ownership rates in part because owning a semi auto is seen as patriotic duty for military defence. Yet compared to the US (worst in the western world) Switzerland has very low gun homicide rates.
11 comments:
"To ban speeding because poor drivers speed and crash is to tell the good drivers that their rights and liberties depend not on their own driving ability, but on the driving ability of the unskilled and dangerous"
Anonymous: Your analogy is a false one. For it to be analogous it would need to start with "To ban cars...".
Terry you are... right. Yet I'm wrestling with where the original quote bothers me. I don't wish to argue that anyone should ban guns. The conduct of the guilty and lawless absolutely impacts the liberties we can afford to provide to the law abiding.
Anonymous: The original quote is meant to bother you. The proper way to look at it is that a society cannot afford not to recognize the rights of those who respect the rights of others, making liberty the default state, which government is charged to uphold. The question of what liberties should be *afforded* properly only pertains to those who who violate the rights of others.
Terry - does your last sentence mean that an 18 year old who’s psychologically disturbed and displaying aggressive tendencies, and shown no interest firearms for any food gathering or pest control or sporting reason, should still be able to go and buy a military style firearm without question - provided they haven’t committed a crime yet?
I ask this as a firearms owner who not so long ago had to go through a 3-4 hour interview at my home, including a private discussion with my wife about whether she ever felt unsafe with me, before I was able to get my *existing* licence renewed for another 10 years. As tiring and annoying and over the top as this was, I didn’t resent the principle that I had to establish I was responsible enough to get the licence renewed. For the same reason I didn’t resent having to pass a driving test when I was 17 before being allowed to drive.
Mark: My bad. In my last sentence I should have written that the question of what liberties should be afforded properly only pertains to those who do not have the will or capacity to respect the rights of others, including those who have violated to rights of others.
If a psychologically disturbed person who is aggressive has a diminished capacity to respect the rights of others, then whether they should bear arms becomes a question of whether to recognize that right or not, and I like you would lean towards not.
What I was objecting to is the idea that rights are afforded to those understand and respect them. In that case, they are not afforded, they are had and their recognition reciprocated.
It's worth considering what Rand had to say on the matter.
"[Gun control] is a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people — they are not carried for hunting animals — and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is going to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim."
Duncan Bayne: Rand also acknowledged that, "Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them." [Ford Hall Forum, 1971]
Thanks for that reminder on what Rand thought. Applying that principle to military semi-automatics would mean a ban on them is probably reasonable, because they’re unnecessary for hunting and self defence (except in war). Handguns by contrast do have a self defence role. Except for low calibre .22’s useful for rabbit control (which were exempt from NZ’s recent ban) the main purpose of other semi autos is to kill a lot of people quickly.
On the other hand, Switzerland requires all men to have firearms training as part of their military service, and has high firearms ownership rates in part because owning a semi auto is seen as patriotic duty for military defence. Yet compared to the US (worst in the western world) Switzerland has very low gun homicide rates.
Banning items of private property "because they're unnecessary" is right at the start of an ever accelerating trip down a very slippery slope.
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