The right to bear arms

Political Philosophy
21

But since the government is the final deciding factor, different proper governments will have different equally valid rules about guns. Some may decide to only allow revolvers, some may allow sawed-off shotguns. None, however, may allow nuclear weapons (arms which go beyond isolated offenders), and none may forbid all means of self defense altogether.

I reject the idea that it is valid for any government to ban a weapon that is not inherently a means of mass death. Nukes, anthrax, etc. are indiscriminate in their killing power. Grenades and rocket launchers are not necessarily so. Private ownership of such weapons is a legitimate self-defense precaution – not so much against common criminals as against tyrannical government.

22

But y_feldblum specifically named “high-yield” nuclear bombs or ICBMs as a threat.

What he actually said was “owning high-yield or nuclear bombs”: I’m perfectly willing to assume that he meant specificially high-yield nuclear bombs, or nuclear devices used specifically as bombs, and that ownership of low-yield explosives is not an intrinsic threat (he may well disagree: I’m just taking his words at face value). The same amount of gasoline that my uncle keeps in his backyard (on a farm) would unquestionably be a threat in a NYC apartment building. Laws which outlaw the possession of gasoline above certain amounts would have to carefully consider context, same with nukes and ICBMs. We’ve seen how simple razor blades and airplanes can be WMDs: it’s not the objects, but why you use them.

23

What he actually said was “owning high-yield or nuclear bombs”: I’m perfectly willing to assume that he meant specificially high-yield nuclear bombs, or nuclear devices used specifically as bombs, and that ownership of low-yield explosives is not an intrinsic threat (he may well disagree: I’m just taking his words at face value). The same amount of gasoline that my uncle keeps in his backyard (on a farm) would unquestionably be a threat in a NYC apartment building. Laws which outlaw the possession of gasoline above certain amounts would have to carefully consider context, same with nukes and ICBMs. We’ve seen how simple razor blades and airplanes can be WMDs: it’s not the objects, but why you use them.

Yes, enough gasoline in one place can have the same kill power as a nuke. But the key difference is that it is very difficult to conceal a gasoline storage tank with the explosive power of a nuclear device. In an urban setting, a suitcase nuke could instantly kill 100,000 people. I can’t imagine how one could accomplish a similar kill with gasoline without alerting the populace well in advance. As for making laws that outlaw only certain kinds of nukes – how would that work? “It shall be a felony for anyone to possess a nuclear explosive device greater than X tons in size”? Good luck trying to enforce that! “But, officer, this is only a five-ton nuke.” “Okay, run along, kid.”

24

I reject the idea that it is valid for any government to ban a weapon that is not inherently a means of mass death. Nukes, anthrax, etc. are indiscriminate in their killing power. Grenades and rocket launchers are not necessarily so.

Why do you need a grenade launcher to kill a guy, if a gun will do? The principle behind the “right to bear arms” is that you should have the weapon of smallest possible danger, that can still kill a possible criminal. The government then retains the right to the bigger weapons, and helps you fight off bigger criminals, such as Arab terrorists.

25

Why do you need a grenade launcher to kill a guy, if a gun will do?

By the same token, why does a police or military force need anything more powerful than a .38 revolver? If the principle is one must always be restricted to the least powerful weapon, then we should all be content with swords and spears. However, as I have previously observed, powerful weapons such as grenades and rocket launchers in a given context can be vital and legitimate tools of self-defense. When the military and police become the minions of a ruthless dictatorship, do we really want freedom fighters to be restricted to weapons that pose little threat to the oppressors?

The principle behind the “right to bear arms” is that you should have the weapon of smallest possible danger, that can still kill a possible criminal.

No, the principle behind the “right to bear arms” is, in the words of Patrick Henry, “that every man be armed” against both foreign invasion and home-grown tyranny. The idea was to decentralize weaponry so that if the center of power fell, individuals would not be left defenseless.

The government then retains the right to the bigger weapons, and helps you fight off bigger criminals, such as Arab terrorists.

So Germans should have been satisfied that their government had all the bigger weapons? That the only possible threat to their freedom was an invasion from France or Russia?

26

Low-yield devices have valid potential industrial uses (for example, mining), thus there are contexts where private ownership of A-bombs is legitimate. In exactly the contexts where a person could own 5 tons of dynamite and not pose a clear threat to the rights of others, a person could own a 5 ton yield fission device.

No contest.

27

By the same token, why does a police or military force need anything more powerful than a .38 revolver

Don’t you get it Tom? There’s a fundamental gulf of difference between a merely a private person and a police officer. A police officer has the right to use retaliatory force as he sees fit. A private person does not. A police officer is a law unto himself, or at least he belongs to an organization (the government) that is a law unto itself. A private person is not a law unto itself. So the government can decide what the best weapons will be for its police officers, because the government has that right, by definition; the police officers, by extension, are merely government officers, and share in everything the goverment can do.

So to answer your question, why does the police need some weapon or other? I don’t know, and it’s none of my business; it has the right to build whatever it wants. I may question the way it is spending my money, but if the money is allocated then it does not matter what the lethality and the destructiveness is of the weapon that’s built. The government was invested with the power of the people precisely to make that decision, and to take that decision out of the hands of the individual citizens.

There is room in the “right to bear arms” for protection against the government itself. However, that extra little principle could be taken too far, and could be taken to mean that each citizen has the right to own a nuke - no government will mess him if he has that, that’s for sure! I don’t know yet where to draw the line in the context of “Freedom fighters” but it seems clear that we cannot build an objective government and still retain the citizens with a privately owned destructive force. Either the government is invested with it, or the citizens are. Either the government is militarily powerful, in which case we have an objective rule of law, or the citizens are each individually militarily powerful, in which case the government dissolves and anarchy begins.

28

There is room in the “right to bear arms” for protection against the government itself.

The fundamental purpose of the right to bear arms is, exactly, protection from the government.

29

Who is to decide and by what means whether a person is rational?

30

Is the right to bear arms a part of Objectivism?

Objectivism propounds that the government should be the sole agent of retaliatory force.

Obviously, Objectivism is comptible with the idea of hunting and with the idea of self-defence. However, I think it is completely compatible with Objectivism for the government to restrcit the types of weapons that private citizens are allowed to own.

Did Ayn Rand comment on this issue?

How does it make sense that "the government should be the sole agent of

retaliatory force"? Who says this? (Not that the “who” is important. I’d just like to

know.)

If I’m attacked, I reserve the right (in other words it IS my right) to respond,

ethically.

The government has one function. To protect “the trader principle”. Those who

violate proper trade (use force to gain value) are to be dealt with by the

government.

It is an individual’s responsibility to respond to emergent (emergency) situations

such that he acts ethically in his response in his vicinity. The government can’t be

everywhere, nor would we want it to be, I dare say.

Is it ethical to use a thermonuclear device to thwart a burglar?

Probably not. :wink:

-Iakeo

31

Of course that might be sorta neat, don’t come near my house or you’ll be vaporized :wink: . All joking aside, I had a short story I was writing for a while about a man who shoots a poor man hiding in the bushes on his way home from work and the man who shoots the poor man is arrested for Murder. Might I add that there is a serial killer going around praying on the poor. The reason I have decided not to go through with this story is because I think my motivation for writing it is propaganda. Anyway at the end of the story I was going to have the Defendent stand during his summation and state why he shot the poor man, and it is the point that Iakeo brought up about the government not being everywhere and the speach deals heavily with the rights of the individual.

Here goes an excerpt from the speach: Note I haven’t finished the speach and haven’t done any editing on it.

It is because of this right that I enacted the right to defend my life in the way I saw fit because I have a right to my life. This right to one’s life needs to be explained in its fullest as well to give you the jury a better understanding as to why I killed a man in the bushes. The right to ones life is just that, you have the right to your life. You have the right to live that life in anyway you see fit. The right to life though isn’t a guarantee of life or of continued existence. It does not guarantee that just because you exist that you will live. It means just as it says you have the right to life, nothing more and nothing less. Yet, with life one must find the means to sustain this life.

The right, which allows a person the means to sustain his life, is the right to property. The right to property means that a man can create, buy or sell his property as he sees fit. The right to property is the governing right that allows a man to live. A man must build or buy a home to protect him from the elements. A man must produce or buy his food to keep him healthy and nourished. A man has a right to his property for it is this right that keeps him alive. This right, the right to property, is a corollary to the right to life with the right to life being the head that all the other three rights flow from.

32

How does it make sense that "the government should be the sole agent of

retaliatory force"? Who says this? (Not that the “who” is important. I’d just like to

know.)

If you advocate that men should themselves practice the right to use force against whomever they deem to be offenders, for whatever reason they feel necessary, at their own private discretion, then you are advocating anarchy.

If I’m attacked, I reserve the right (in other words it IS my right) to respond, ethically.

Yes. But if the guy starts running away, it would be immoral, and therefore illegal, for you to chase after him with a baseball club and clubber him to death. And then go after his associates who helped him plan the attack on your house, and beat them up as well. That is anarchy, pure and simple. Only government can properly be allowed to go after criminals, outside of that one circumstance when your life is directly threatened and you must do something because the government cannot act in time to save you. All other instances must be left up to the government, in order for a proper society to flourish.

33

If you advocate that men should themselves practice the right to use force against whomever they deem to be offenders, for whatever reason they feel necessary, at their own private discretion, then you are advocating anarchy.

The use of force is only warranted as reaction to someone else’s initiation of force

as a violation of the “trader principle”.

Yes. But if the guy starts running away, it would be immoral, and therefore illegal, for you to chase after him with a baseball club and clubber him to death. And then go after his associates who helped him plan the attack on your house, and beat them up as well. That is anarchy, pure and simple. Only government can properly be allowed to go after criminals, outside of that one circumstance when your life is directly threatened and you must do something because the government cannot act in time to save you. All other instances must be left up to the government, in order for a proper society to flourish.

If the attacked-one is no longer in danger of being “improperly traded with”

(forced to do something), then the emergency situation is over, and the “bad guy”

should be apprehended by the police.

If the act of running away would violate the attacked-one’s right to being

compensated for the initial “trader principle” violation (force), then all means

necessary are granted to the attacked-one to ensure that they will be

compensated.

So we agree. The police (government) shall exclusively enforce the "trader

principle", unless they are incapable of doing so in such a way that the “bad guy”

would get away (not be findable by the police). In which case it is the attacked-

one’s (or their proxies) right to enforce the “trader principle” violation.

-Iakeo

34

I’ve seen you state this unusual formulation of relating the government to the Trader Principle. The two are related of course, but indirectly, so I’d like you to explain what you mean by your perrenial use of the Trader Principle in this context, and where AR said something to support your claims. From my understanding, the only moral concept she directly related to “government” was that of “rights”, and the Trader Principle, among others, was related indirectly.

35

Here goes an interesting problem though, lets say that for whatever reason the Government can’t do anything about something. You see my nieghborhood has gotten worse and worse over the years. I can point out to you the bad elements, the people of my neighborhood knows them, hell the hellraisers even know this to be true. Yet they walk around the neighborhood terroizing it basically thinking they own the place. Yet, you call the police all they can do is have them dispurse since really they haven’t done any type of criminal activity. Yet, the fact remains that when you walk to get a gallon of milk and since there favorite place to hang out is right across from the store, you don’t feel safe.

36

That’s why you get yourself elected by the citizens as the mayor, or get the mayor appoint you as chief of police, or go to work in the police department and become the chief man in charge of that area of the city, and clean it up. That’s how a free society works.

A quick resort to guns is not the miracle answer to all of life’s problems. Especially for the good guys.

37

I know this, you haven’t heard any reports about a mad gunman terrorizing any areas in Pittsburgh have you. I am just stating a frustration is all.

38

No contest.

The dynamite would be far cheaper, safer, and easier to handle without possibility of radioactive contamination. I can’t think of any reason why anyone would bother building a 5 ton yield fission device. Can you say: arbitrary? I knew you could :slight_smile:

39

The dynamite would be far cheaper, safer, and easier to handle without possibility of radioactive contamination. I can’t think of any reason why anyone would bother building a 5 ton yield fission device. Can you say: arbitrary? I knew you could :slight_smile:

Someone likes to tinker and thinks mushroom clouds are pretty? :smiley:

40

Necessary_Truths, you might like to describe the context of your quote.

I am going to guess the context is if you are supposed to form some judgment by a process of reason then the answer to the question “Whose reason?” is “Yours.”

But that doesn’t apply to the context the discussion is dealing with. It is the same issue as why a Galt’s Gulch cannot exist as such in real life, but only in a fiction novel. If only rational people are to be allowed in and it is assumed they will remain rational the duration of their stay, then - as before (the same question I asked above) - Who is to decide and by what means whether a person is rational? Such a thing is not possible, yet is is a precondition for a Galt’s Gulch and for only rational people being allowed to own guns.