The gun ownership issue
I have finally narrowed down my point of contention about the “gun ownership” issue. It’ll probably sound very obvious and it may make me look a fool for writing about it but I’m going to anyway.
Here are the suppositions of the argument:
1. Most people are untrustworthy
2. All people are incapable of rational/reasoned thought all of the time.
Here is my reasoning or ideological difficulty:
If I agree with my very often mulled-over stance (libertarianism in short) that everyone has the right to do anything, own anything, act in any way they please as long as it doesn’t impact another human being I have to agree that people have the right to own any manner of weapon they please. Note of course they do not have the right to use that weapon against anyone for any reason but self defense. (See below on why self-defense is cause to harm another)
Alright, that makes sense except when I glance back at my suppositions. You see I’m an individualist in every meaning of the term, that includes philosophically. I believe people do things that only further themselves in some way. Whether that’s true or not, natural or not is irrelevant, it is what I believe to be true. So in believing that (and my suppositions) to be true I cannot to any degree allow a person to own a weapon because persons are
A) untrustworthy, that is that they cannot be trusted to use the weapon properly. More generally I do not trust persons to act and behave in accordance with a rather complicated set of rules (ie. libertarianism). The fact is, I look over the shoulder of the bank teller to see if she spelled my name right when paying a bill, just to be certain because I do not believe she can be trusted to carry out a task as simple as that. How than do I expect to trust someone with the great power of life and death over me? How can I trust those that I do not trust to properly make me a cup of tea, with the power to kill another? The power to shatter lives and existences, the power to upset all that is holy to many (myself included)?
and,
B) an extension of point A. really. If people are incapable of reasoned thought all of the time, how does that play into the knowledge that they carry this power of death in their hands? If they do not have the reason to use it properly (ie. only in self defense) does that not, by deduction, and so becoming a fact, mean they will harm someone?
Yes its a little late and I’m tired. I guess that’s the fine edge to me that I have finally thought through enough to understand on that deeper level. The wonderfully wonderful ideological ideology states that everyone is equal and that everyone has the rights accorded to them under natural law/libertarianism, yet at the same time I know that people are on the whole stupid, untrustworthy creatures. Do we give everyone guns and say that because ideology dictates equal rights for everyone one man is as good as another and further, we must accept the bad that will come with certainty if we accept supposition #2. Or do we go US style and preempt and take away everyone’s guns because we know that bad will happen and without guns the bad can be greatly limited?
In reality of course (as is often the case with philosophy) this entire diatribe is moot because guns will always be around and they will always fall into “bad” hands just as often as they fall into “good” hands.
** why self defense is an acceptable reason for the harm of another. When one prson attacks another (in any way) they immediately give up their rights. These rights were given them by the rest of society. So that once an attack is carried out by one person upon another, the victim has no more obligation to the attacker. The reward of living in society is being respected and given the right of liberty of life and action and the only payment a person must make to be granted these is to give this liberty to others. Once a person becomes an attacker they simply default on their payments so to speak and so the society no longer needs to reward him with the rights of liberty of life and action.