On Defending Oneself

The National Rifle Association (NRA) argues that the right to own and bear arms rests upon a more basic right than the Second Amendment and indeed is implied by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. That more basic right is the right to defend oneself. Let us examine that asserted right for its logic and consequences.

Notably the ostensive definition of the word “gun” has changed markedly since the Second Amendment was written. This is one consequence of writing any technology into a document intended to be effective or hundreds of years and it is one reason the process of amendment was made available to change the document as needed.

The word “gun”, meant a single shot muzzle loading device at the time the 2^nd Amendment was written and now can mean an assault rifle like the AR-15 which fires at a rate of 800 rounds per minute. The NRA insists that both the ancient 18^th and the 21^st century weapons are equivalent as far as the 2^nd Amendment is concerned. In an article titled All Guns are not Equal in the University of California Davis Law Journal, which can be found at http://chronicle.com/article/All-Guns-Are-Not-Created-Equal/136805/, it is pointed out that a distinction was made between the light fowling, hunting and vermin-killing guns owned by citizens including the light muskets used by state militias, and the heavy muskets issued by the federal government to counter the heavy muskets of the British army.   I found the above referenced long article exceptionally useful for understanding the context in which the 2^nd Amendment was written and ratified. 

As things now stand, an American can own and bear a machine gun. The effort to reduce the idiocy of such a gun-ridden environment was recently defeated by Republicans using an equally idiotic and non-democratic Senate rule allowing a minority of 1/3 plus 1 vote to defeat a majority nearly twice its size. This is a Senate rule and not a law. It has never been approved by the citizens whom it so frequently harms. Even when used to protect the public wellbeing it remains undemocratic.

But the logic of the right to self-defense and, per its supporters, therefore the Second Amendment, has gone substantially unanalyzed. As it now stands, a person can buy and use for self-defense a machine gun. What if a neighbor acquires, to defend his home against an outbreak of gang violence, a shoulder fired anti-tank weapon, as is used in the suburbs of Damascus? Does that mean I also have the right to acquire such a weapon? If so, what would society look like then? Clearly, leaving the definition of “gun” open ended, as it now is and as the NRA insists it must remain, leads to absurdity, i.e. individual self-defense leads to social chaos. “Gun” must be defined in a way with much less disastrous consequences for humanity. Recently, in China, a man undertook a mass attack on a school including its children. Because he did so with a knife, because gun ownership by citizens is not permitted, there were no fatalities. The logic here is you have a right to defend yourself, but only with stipulated weapons.

The upshot of this type of analysis acknowledges society’s right to impose the rules for human activity if such activity is deleterious to its members’ welfare, but leaves the individual free to defend her/himself.

This kind of analysis, and I am sure the above example can be improved upon, is what is necessary to get beyond the state of affairs that is literally killing us.

There is a correlate to the above observation. We often hear the statement that “The end does not justify the means.” To the contrary, the “end” is the only thing that can justify the “means.” Without the “end” the act or thing that is the “means” is merely an act or thing. As with so much of human discourse, we cover up our inadequacies with verbiage. What is generally the case when the above locution is used is that people were unclear about the “end” that has been asserted. In the above case the “end” is self-defense and the “gun” the “means.” However, we have seen that the means has produced unacceptable consequences. The “end” of self-defense requires a social context; otherwise society becomes an unlimited shooting gallery or a jungle, neither of which is acceptable for the security of human beings. Had we been clear on the “end” we would have specified the means as conditional upon whatever other consequences those means do or may entail. The failure of the founders to do so, despite being aware of the massive changes the Industrial Revolution could produce, does not mean that we should not do so now. This kind of effort should be part of a process of bringing the Constitution into the modern age and also increasing awareness of the need to exercise the precautionary principle.

Bob Newhard