One common objection to this, the “Guns don’t kill
people, people kill people” meme, is overly simplistic. (And I loathe overly
simplistic memes with a fiery passion.) People do kill one another with a
variety of weapons, but guns make killing people a lot easier. It is a lot
easier to pull a gun on oneself or another than to stick a knife in someone’s
back.
Catholics are called to be pro-life in all aspects
of their lives. Since guns are often used to take lives, the question arises:
Should Catholics support responsible gun control in order save lives,
protecting the common good?
There are two must better reasons to oppose gun
control. The first is the deterrent effect of guns. Criminals deliberately seek
to get around laws, while ordinary citizens obey them. Thus, a society which embraces
gun control will, in the long run, have widespread gun ownership only in the
hands of those willing to break the law.
Further, a disarmed populace is unable to defend
itself effectively against shooters. A criminal is far less likely to attack a
person who has the possibility of being armed than otherwise. The example of
Switzerland is often cited as proof that widespread gun ownership of guns
acts as a deterrent – gun crimes are comparatively rare in Switzerland, yet gun
ownership is widespread in that country.
The second argument against gun control is more
compelling. Guns allow individuals to protect themselves against tyrannical
states.
A state in which gun ownership is outlawed is a
state where government can oppress its citizens without any effective check on
its power. Without gun ownership, citizens cannot effectively band together to
defend themselves against the police power of the state.
Thus, widespread, responsible gun ownership acts as
a check against tyranny.
The common good is therefore best served by
widespread, responsible gun ownership, as both a deterrent against criminals
and a check on governmental overreach.
In an ideal world, guns would be completely
unnecessary. People would not need to live in fear of one another and of the
government. But the world is not ideal, and people are imperfect, so widespread gun ownership,
paradoxically, serves as a guarantor of peace and order.
After all, "Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt." (When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults."
ReplyDeleteWhile you know that I respect your views Paul, both of the arguments you make are ones I have heard before, and neither of them strike as particularly logical.
ReplyDelete1. You say that having an armed population acts as a deterrent and makes people safer. That should mean that, since we literally have the best armed civilian population in the world, we should be the safest country in the world, with the lowest levels of violent crime.
This is not true. Despite having 890 guns for every 1000 people, our number of gun-related deaths per year are higher than all other 1st world nations put together. Our incarceration rate is one of (if the not the) highest in the industrialized world. Clearly, having guns does not automatically deter crime. In fact, it seems to have the opposite effect.
This is the exact same mentality that drove the arms race of the Cold War, and it has not made the world safer. In fact, it is the reason our world today is more unstable than ever before.
2. You claim that an armed population is a defense against tyranny. How, then, did Tunisia, with the LOWEST gun-ownership rate in the world, manage to overthrow a decades-old dictatorship through a non-violent revolution? How did our Civil Rights movement succeed in overturning Jim Crow laws, despite the brutal violence they were met with? How did Ghandi manage to lead India to independence? Why is Myanmar suddenly rolling back its autocratic policies, despite a shot never being fired by a rebellion?
Violence, or the threat thereof, merely begets violence, and not democracy.