Where Guns are Outlawed, only Outlaws have Guns

In nature, every organism has means to protect itself. Camouflage, toxicity, aggression, needles, fangs, and armor are a few of the weapons plants and animals use to stay alive. Even one-celled organisms with short life spans propagate with such rapidity that extermination of an entire species is rare. The theory of evolution implies that those species with inadequate defenses against external threats eventually evolve or succumb. The necessity to respond to threats to its existence, an organism’s right of self-defense, so to speak, is as fundamental as life itself.

Certainly, humans share that right of self-defense. However, one aspect of that right differentiates them from other organisms. Most species do not practice species immolation. One of the biggest dangers to humans, on the other hand, is other humans. In a social order that preserves individual rights, no individual may initiate force against another, and individuals are justified in resisting such force. Because the acquisition and use of property are essential to human survival, the stricture extends to the non-initiation of force to acquire another person’s legitimately acquired property.

The governed delegate to their government the power to use force to protect themselves and their property from violence and punish those who initiate it. That power is delegated, not abrogated. A government has no right to use force against those who have not initiated or threatened to initiate force. A government’s powers are delegated powers, and constituents cannot delegate a right to it that they do not have as individuals. Once a government initiates force against individuals, it violates the rights of those individuals. A legitimate government can only use force or the threat of force to protect life and property and punish those who initiate force or threaten to do so.

No government since governments began has so restricted itself. Every government has violated individuals’ rights to security in their persons or possessions, illegitimately using force or its threat against some or all of its citizens. The right of individuals to resist such force, the right to revolt, is based on their right to survive; nobody must assent to his or her own enslavement or destruction (from government or any other person or entity). Resistance to illegitimate and often overwhelming governmental power requires an ability to counter with force on the part of individuals. Only in the context of the struggle to maintain individual rights against illegitimate governments, can the issues stemming from the private ownership of firearms be analyzed and understood.

Advocates of restrictions on or the complete abolition of the private right to possess firearms do their best to obscure this central issue. How can human beings be denied a right essential to every organism: the right of self-defense? The only plausible answer: constituents renounce their ability to protect themselves and delegate that power to the government. That equates delegation with abrogation, but how can that power be abrogated to an institution that has, historically, been the greatest threat to the security of persons, property, and individual rights? This question allows only the dubious response: trust the government. It also exposes the real aim of many in the gun control and abolition crowd—to make it easier for government to violate its constituents’ rights.

The recent tragedy in Sydney shoots holes in the case for renunciation of the individual right to self-defense in favor of abrogation to the government in the name of gun control. In the United States, one occasionally sees the bumper sticker: “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” It is easy to dismiss bumper-sticker wisdom, but if governments that have run roughshod over individuals’ rights for the last century are categorized, rightfully, as criminal, this one is a veritable pearl.

In 1996, in response to a shooting massacre by Martin Bryant in Port Arthur, Tasmania, that killed 35 people and wounded 23, the Australian government enacted restrictive gun regulations, uniform across Australia’s states and territories. Notwithstanding Port Arthur, Australia already had low rates of homicides, accidental killings, and suicide by firearms, but despite some controversy, the public supported the new measures. Mandatory owner licensing requires proof of a “genuine reason” to possess a gun, and self-defense is not considered a genuine reason. Rapid-fire rifles and shot guns are banned. Owners turned in their weapons in two federally-funded gun buybacks and the weapons were destroyed. Handguns are permitted only for target shooters (who cannot carry those firearms around) and certain security guards. Firearms have to be registered to the owner by serial number, except for a small number of pre-1901 firearms.

Implicit in the bumper sticker: criminals or those who intend to commit crimes do not observe the law, including firearms restrictions. No government has ever been able to fully enforce its laws, and self-evidently guns can be illegally obtained in Australia. The Sydney shooter, Man Haron Monis, a self-proclaimed Shi’ite Muslim cleric, had been convicted for sending what a judge called “grossly offensive” letters to families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, had been charged with sexual assault and for being an accessory to the murder of his wife, for which charge he was out on bail. Somehow he illegally acquired the shotgun he used in the Lindt Chocolate Café hostage taking.

When people are rendered defenseless by law, they are, like the patrons of the café, at the mercy of anyone capable of inflicting violence. Mr. Haron was rather inept and some of his prisoners escaped, but two were killed, as was Mr. Haron. There is no saying that if Australia had concealed carry laws the tragedy would not have happened; it is quite possible that none of the café patrons would have had weapons. However, recognizing the private, individual right of self-defense gives individuals a choice: they can arm and rely on themselves—and whatever additional protection the government may provide—for their safety; or they can rely solely on the government to both enforce its gun restrictions and to respond to those who do not observe those restrictions and inflict, or threaten to inflict, violence on innocents. Governments’ execution of those functions will inevitably be imperfect, as it was in Sydney.

Whether or not people carry firearms, when the right is legally recognized, it changes the calculus of would-be criminals by introducing an element of uncertainly: is the prospective victim armed? In the U.S., the conclusion is emerging (although still controversial) that states that institute more permissive laws on firearms possession and ‘concealed carry’ see a decrease in violent crime. Most large-scale shooting tragedies have been in areas, like schools and universities, where the perpetrator was reasonably assured that no one would be shooting back. The generally pro-gun control American press gives little coverage to instances in which men, women, and children successfully defend themselves with guns, but the number of such incidents is significant and counter-balances the amply covered stories of gun violence and accidental shooting deaths.

A legally protected right to possess firearms also changes the calculus of would-be criminal governments, which most defenders of the Second Amendment in the U.S. recognize as the most important reason for defending it. Nobody is suggesting imminent tyranny from the Australian or the U.S. governments, but if they tried to institute such regimes, the former would have a much easier time of it than the latter. It is much harder to strip people of their rights if they can fight back.

Related Posts:

1. Context Makes Some Gun Control Good Libertarian Policy

   

About the Author: Robert Gore

Robert Gore traded a variety of financial instruments for twenty-eight years. He ran the fixed income division of a regional securities firm and was on the firm’s executive committee before he retired to write full-time. He has published two novels, most recently, The Golden Pinnacle, a historical novel set during the Industrial Revolution. On his website, straightlinelogic.com, he analyzes politics, finance, economics, contemporary culture, and the arts. He has BA degrees in economics and political science from UCLA, and JD and MBA degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.