With a Gun

In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes dangerous to mankind, the tye, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broken by him.
~~ John Locke, 1690

With a Gun

Jack LeMoult, writing as a guest columnist for the Xenia Daily Gazette, wrote:

A gun is like a pair of elevator shoes. It confers artificial stature. [1]

Using this partial, inappropriate, misleading, and fanciful lead-in, Mr. LeMoult rants about all the ways he would infringe the U.S. Constitution and the rights of almost 300 million people in America so he could feel safer at Virginia Tech, a place that everyone knows, by now, was a gun-free victim zone, and against a man everyone now knows was a psychopath.

He then asks the most important question in the entire debate of safety.

Would America be a safer place if every university, college, technical school, high school, home, and workplace bristled with people armed to the teeth?[2]

He answers in the negative, without any analysis whatsoever.

Ignoring the real Constitutional prohibition against ANY infringement on the right to keep and bear arms (as that is what liberals, social engineers, and tyrants are wont to do), answers to that question are imperative to learning why the Second Amendment’s enumeration of the right is so very important to the individual sovereignty of United States citizens; and provides an opportunity for an overt challenge to Mr. LeMoult's ad-hominem attack on the stature of firearm owners that is pleasingly easy.

John Locke (quoted above), if anyone cares to do the math, lived long before the Constitution of the United States and it’s Fourth Amendment (the first two were rejected and lost to the minds of modern America) were penned. Yet, his writings underpin some of the most important philosophies of the founding fathers and our days.

Mr. Locke spoke of the laws of nature and of reason. He also acceded to the knowledge that there are some among us who do not abide by either the laws of nature or the laws of reason. (Mr. Locke would also chastise were these laws presumed to conflict with one another. He would, most probably, argue that they are and remain the same laws.)

Acknowledging this class of people, these criminals, may do harm, Mr. Locke continues

[…] the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation: for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world 'be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. [3]

The right to property, to liberty, and to security belong to every man. This was true in 1690, well before the American Revolution, well before the Continental Congress, well before the drafting and adoption of the amendments that became our Bill of Rights. As a matter of fact, since these rights pre-existed the historical roots of the United States, and the historical roots of John Locke’s philosophy, they can be shown to preexist the first government and be shown to exist, even in the first man. How far back must an inquisitive mind seek for the origins of our rights?

If the mere name of antiquity is to govern in the affairs of life, the people who are to live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as well take us for a precedent, as we make a precedent of those who lived an hundred or a thousand years ago. The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving everything, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our enquiries find a resting-place, and our reason finds a home. If a dispute about the rights of man had arisen at the distance of an hundred years from the creation, it is to this source of authority they must have referred, and it is to this same source of authority that we must now refer. [4]

The Rights of Man, to coin the title from which this quote originates, are universal, pre-existent, and pre-eminent to man. They, like the breath that gave us life, are a gift from the Creator (or if you are a heathen, from something even bigger than the entirety of the population on earth -- if a heathen can imagine that).

The origin of all of our rights cascaded down, not from history, but from authority. The same Creator who imbued Adam with his rights, individually imbued each human creature with his own, individual, independent, personal rights.

Among those, the right to self-defense may be among the first order of rights. The right of self-defense may not be the first right, but it is among the first rights.

John Locke stated that the first right of all men is the right of property. He stated, too, that the most important property that any man holds is himself -- his person; his life.

Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.[5]

The first and most principal right, therefore, is the right of property. The most important of all property, then, is the person himself. Without the security and safety of the person, no other possessions can be held and no other rights enjoyed. The property of one’s life is established, then, as the most important right an individual can bear. It is the right of control of that property that our prisons revoke. It is the right of possession of the property of life that is taken during execution.

Abraham Maslow, in his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation, said that physiological needs take precedence over all other needs. "Physiological" is an insecure person’s word for "life." Even Maslow got it right when he placed security as the second most important need.

Maslow would hardly approve of his name in a treatise like this. However, his work is included to point out that a broken clock is even right twice a day.

Establishing that we have a right to property, and chiefly to ourselves, logical thought supports the ideas that we can defend ourselves from those who would want to harm us -- to take our property.

Early Christian thought supports the right of individual self-defense.

[…] for as no power given to man to murder his brother is of God, so no power to suffer his brother to be murdered is of God; and no power to suffer himself, a fortiori, far less can be from God.[6]

From the book of Genesis to the present day, man has suffered unjust death at the hand of the brother and the criminal alike. Yet, no jurisprudence or logical thought defends the right of the murderer to murder. To the contrary, from early history to the present day, the right to self-defense is established and incontrovertible.

John Stewart Mill stated that all men have the power to force others to do our will, but that our power was only justly exercised in self-defense.

That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.[7]

With that prohibition established against any arbitrary use of violence, the right still pertains. An individual has a right to self-defense; even if it comes at the injury or further harm to the one who initiated the attack. Further, Montesquieu declared that self-defense is a duty.

Who does not see that self-defence is a duty superior to every precept?[8]

Individuals have not only the right to self-defense, but a duty to defend themselves and their families and their communities. There exists a responsibility of the moral individual to bear the burden of defense. Yet, our current society passes that duty to others.

The idea that we should let professionals protect us is a relatively recent philosophy, and would never have been considered at the time of the drafting of the Constitution or the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. Self-defense and defense of the community was judged a moral trait, and was honored in early America.

The notion that the truly civilized person eschews self-defense, relying on the police instead, or that private self-protection deserves the public interest, would never have occurred to the Founders since there were no police in eighteenth century America and England. In the tradition from which the second amendment derives it was not only the unquestioned right, but a crucial element in the moral character of every free man that he be armed and willing to defend his family and the community against crime. This duty included both individual acts and joining with his fellows in hunting criminals down when the hue and cry went up, as well as the more formal posse and militia patrol duties, under the control of justices of the peace or sheriffs.  In this milieu, individuals who thwarted a crime against themselves or their families were seen as serving the community as well.[9]

With all the above supporting evidence, the right and the duty of self-defense is firmly established. It is necessary to establish this right (and its duty) before we can justly consider whether gun ownership and carry is even legally plausible.

Having established this just right and duty, Mr. LeMoult's question remains. Does an increase in the presence and availability of guns make a community, a society, or a nation safer?

Looking at two aspects of the gun-possession scenario, one where firearm possession (by lawful citizens) is ubiquitous and one where firearm possession (by lawful citizens) is forbidden, the numbers and histories are chilling for societies where guns are strictly controlled or limited. They are very promising for societies when guns are widely available.

A 1997 Justice Department report on murders in the U.S. shows that our country has a murder rate of seven victims per 100,000 population per year. There are a number of well-known examples of countries with more liberal gun laws and lower murder rates than the U.S. One is Finland, with a murder rate of 2.9. Israel is another example; although its population is heavily armed, Israel's murder rate is only 1.4. In Switzerland, gun ownership is a way of life. Its murder rate is 2.7.

By contrast, consider Brazil. All firearms in Brazil must be registered with the government. This registration process can take anywhere from 30 days to three months. All civilian handguns are limited in caliber to no more than 9mm. All rifles must fire handgun ammunition only. Brazilians may only buy one gun per year. At any one time, they may only have in their possession a maximum of six guns: two handguns, two rifles and two shotguns. To transport their guns, citizens must obtain a special police permit. CCW permits are available but are rarely issued.
[...]
Guns are effectively outlawed in Russia. Private handgun ownership is totally prohibited. A permit is required to purchase a long gun. All guns are registered with authorities. When transporting a long gun, it must be disassembled. Long guns may only be used for self-defense when the gun owner is on his own property. By the way, Russia's murder rate is a staggering 30.6.[10]

Considering that the comparative number to which Mr. Rabb refers is the number of murders-per-100,000 population, the multiplication is amazing. Extrapolated to the population of the United States, America would suffer under a murder rate of almost 130,000 per year if we lived under the rule of law in Russia. And that rule of law forbids personal firearm possession or use.

The other nations in the study that had high rates of personal ownership of firearms had very low incidences of murder. The inverse correlation stands in this analysis: it is safer to live in a nation where more people carry firearms than in a nation where fewer (law-abiding) people carry firearms.

Obviously, the criminals will ignore both the prohibitions against firearm ownership and those prohibitions against other sins, like theft, rape, assault, murder, and jaywalking. It matters not whether prohibitions exist, so long as there is no resistance or deterrent, criminals will be criminals (as they say).

The only thing criminals fear is the armed, more powerful citizen.

Research conducted by Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi, for a landmark study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, points to the armed citizen as possibly the most effective deterrent to crime in the nation. Wright and Rossi questioned over 1,800 felons serving time in prisons across the nation and found:

81% agreed the "smart criminal" will try to find out if a potential victim is armed. 74% felt that burglars avoided occupied dwellings for fear of being shot. 80% of "handgun predators" had encountered armed citizens. 40% did not commit a specific crime for fear that the victim was armed. 34% of "handgun predators" were scared off or shot at by armed victims. 57% felt that the typical criminal feared being shot by citizens more than he feared being shot by police.[11]

Those are conclusive numbers and concrete evidence that the armed citizen prevents crime -- just by the threat and possibility of resistance.

Were every citizen armed, that would translate from a possible risk to the criminal into a certain risk to the criminal. If he committed a violent crime in the presence of just one other person, and that person was not an accessory to the crime, the criminal would certainly face armed resistance.

Projecting further without any basis except optimism, were everyone armed, our natural suspicion of others could be lowered. We would all know that we could return force for force -- even the smallest or weakest person becomes a physical force that criminals will avoid.

Were everyone armed, there would be no blood in the street. Contrary to the unfounded fears of the gun-control crowd, as more and more studies show, this does not happen. Even further, armed societies have lower murder rates than "unarmed" societies. Were everyone armed, there would be no stigma, no feeling of helplessness in schools and malls and offices. Empowerment is liberating.

Were there universal gun ownership and possession -- if every school and workplace bristled with people, armed to the teeth -- it would be a pretty nice place.

 

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[1] Guns and masculinity, Jack LeMoult, Xenia Daily Gazette (online), May 10, 2007, www.xeniagazette.com
[2] Ibid.
[3] The Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 2: Of the State of Nature, John Locke, 1690
[4] The Rights of Man, Part the First, Thomas Paine, 1792
[5] The Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 2: Of Property, John Locke, 1690
[6] Lex, Rex,or The Law and the Prince; Rev. Samuel Rutherford, Printed for John Field, October. 7, 1644
[7] Modern History Sourcebook: On Liberty, CHAPTER I, John Stuart Mill, 1869
[8] THE SPIRIT OF LAWS, Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, 1752
[9] THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND THE IDEOLOGY OF SELF-PROTECTION, Don B. Kates, Jr, 9 Const. Comm. 87-104 ,1992
[10] The Numbers Speak For Themselves, John Hay Rabb, Guns & Ammo, (unknown date)
[11] 10 Myths of Gun Control, Institute for Legislative Action, 1996