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It’s always a good idea to ban something. Look how well it’s worked for drugs. More laws to enforce. More criminals to bust. More fines, forfeitures and jail terms. More opportunity to develop our ability to take orders and enjoy humiliation. Everybody wins!
A high tolerance for humiliation is hardly a character trait I’d like my sons to aspire to. But to each his own.
Sprite is correct that it is not “craven” to cooperate with a social contract, but a contract is something to which both sides agree. I gladly honor the contract that says the state will enforce its laws. Unfortunately, enforcing the law has nothing to do with protecting us from people who break them. That’s not part of the deal. The cops have a duty to catch crooks, not to prevent crime or protect anyone from it.
What is craven is to expect someone for whom you have little respect to risk his life to defend yours when you are unwilling to lift a finger on your own behalf. It is, however, perfectly consistent with a low opinion of your fellow man and a belief that the “little people” exist for your convenience.
I’m curious as to how donning a uniform elevates the cop you’re counting on for help from membership in the “inept population” to skilled and courageous defender of his betters. Where’s the magic? The badge? Those snappy Smokie-the-bear hats? The gun? I’d like a little of that.
And while I’m sure libertarians appreciate your tolerant offer of banishment to the wilderness, I’m equally sure they would prefer that you simply left them in peace rather than forcibly disarm them for the supposed benefit of those with less self respect. Libertarians strongly believe in non-agression. They are no danger to anyone who does not threaten them with violence.
The disarming of civilians has nowhere been successful in reducing violence. On the contrary, the greatest crimes in human history have all be perpetrated by government agents against unarmed civilians. The combined crimes of every murderer who ever lived are hardly noticable against those committed by governments in the 20th century, most often against their own people. Thousands of people may be murdered in civil society in any given year, but government murders routinely number in the millions, and always against unarmed populations.
As to the safety to be gained by disarming a country, an unarmed Costa Rica has always had the implied protection of Uncle Sam. Switzerland is a far better model for peaceful, long term prosperity. It’s the libertarian model of an armed and trained militia in a capitalist country that minds it own business. They haven’t had a war since before Lincoln was president. Poverty in Switzerland looks like high living in Costa Rica.
I wrote the article promoting a choice between “armed” and “unarmed” flights. The idea was somewhat tongue in cheek, considering the fascist atmosphere at airports, and hysterical gun phobias of people like sprite, it is unlikely to be given the consideration it merits. More’s the pity.
There are a number of common threads and fallacies in anti-gun opinion. Sprite shows us a good many of them in one short post.
The first is elitism.
Sprite declares, with the certainty of the righteous, and the unintentional ambiguity that makes English such a delight, “Most people don’t have enough common sense to own a gun.”
He doesn’t mean that owning a gun is sensible. He means most people are too stupid or morally depraved to bear such a weighty responsibility. As so many of his gun fearing allies do, sprite surveys mankind and finds the bulk of it lacks his own good sense and ethical resolve.
The “inept population” can’t be trusted with matters as grave as self defense. Only people on government payrolls, a group famous for its intelligence and rectitude, and morally superior beings like sprite, who know what boobs the rest of us are, have the wit and moral fiber sufficient for weapons possession. The great mass of men can scarcely aspire to their lofty orbit in the intellectual universe.
The second is ignorance.
Sprite’s short comment demonstrates a sweeping ignorance of the events of 9/11, the use of guns in crimes, the increased crime associated with banning guns, the increased safety associated with gun ownership, and the risks involved with guns in general.
Comparing gun ownership with death rates is meaningless. Of course more people will die from gunshots where there are more guns. Murder rates were always lower in the UK than in the US, regardless of how they were committed. Murder rates are lower in Switzerland too, where there is a machine gun in every closet. Murder rates do not correlate with gun ownership in any meaningful way just as the availability of spoons doesn’t correlate with obiesity.
The only significant correlation between gun ownership and crime rates is in favor of widespread gun ownership. In the United States you need only compare crime in totally disarmed cities such as D.C. and New York to that of jurisdictions that allow civilians to defend themselves to see that guns prevent crime. The dramatic decrease in crime in states that have passed “shall issue” concealed carry laws confirms every correlation. Guns are used in preventing more crimes than are committed with them.
I reject the moral utilitarianism that would force an innocent person into defenselessness on the off chance that crime in general might decline. Of course I’m interested in seeing less crime, but I can’t help with that problem if I’m murdered by an armed thug because I couldn’t defend myself.
I’m not suggesting that sprite should defend himself, or that reliance on an underpaid cop to risk his life on sprite’s behalf might be a tad presumptuous, only that he not force me to be quite that helpless and craven. The crime rate isn’t going to go down if I don’t have a gun.
The third of the popular anti-gun fallacies sprite relies on is that the instrument itself, a small internal combustion power tool, somehow mysteriously changes the character of its owner. According to this argument, if there were a pistol on every hip in an airplane, that group of normal, law abiding citizens — accountants, secretaries, truck drivers, little league coaches, soccer moms, and flag saluting Americans — would suddenly become a murderous, blood thirsty mob, blowing each other away over bags of salted nuts.
If there is any notion that is insane, that’s it. Mr. Rogers will not become a cardigan bearing Dr. Hyde simply because he has a pistol in his pocket.
And after all, I never suggested that sprite be forced to fly on one of these “insane” flights. In a free market system he would be welcome to continue enjoying all the security that ritual humiliation and boot licking can provide. He could continue to fly with the helpless and hope they are harmless.
But those of us who are not quite as disdainful of our fellow passengers would have choices as well. If one of them turns out to be a nut with a gun, there would be a lot of sane people with guns to defend me.
