[lit-ideas] Re: Feeling Safe isn't safe
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 07:52:52 -0300
Lawrence Helm wrote:
"He observes a situation in Florida and one in Virginia where many people,
having taken the test and been granted concealed-carry permits walk around
with guns. It is that situation that he portrays."
This is simply wrong. He, as you do, conflate the advantage of gun owners
being qualified with the need for widespread gun ownership. What you cannot
square is the call for gun owners to be qualified and the claim that
everyone has the right to protect family and property. If you insist on
qualifications, even basic ones such as clean record, then you deprive some
people of their right to protect house and home. If you insist on the right
to protect house and home, you cannot require qualifications. Your problem
lies in the fact that you want gun ownership to be a basic right, something
that precedes government, while also insisting that gun ownership be
regulated by government, so that people like Cho can't get a gun.
If the government has the right to deny people like Cho ownership of a gun,
while presumably taking on the responsibility of protecting Cho, then the
government has the right to more broadly restrict the ownership of guns,
while taking on the responsibility of protecting the population. If the
government does not have the right to broadly restrict the ownership of
guns, on the grounds that everyone has the right to protect themselves, then
it cannot deny people like Cho the right to protect themselves by owning
guns.
The basic error is twofold: there is the positing of a mythical right to own
guns, in place of the more general right to defend oneself, and there is a
misunderstanding of the role of government in relation to defending oneself.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
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