Notebook per
Is There a Right to Own a Gun?
Citation (APA): Huemer, M. (2014). Is There a Right to Own a Gun? [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
Is There a Right to Own a Gun? By Michael Huemer
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 12
1. Introduction
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t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 13
Gun control supporters often assume that the acceptability of gun control laws turns on whether they increase or decrease crime rates. The notion that such laws might violate rights, independently of whether they decrease crime rates, is rarely entertained.
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x ASSUNTO SBAGLIATO DEI PROIBIZIONISTI
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Thus, a colleague who teaches about the issue once remarked to me that from the standpoint of rights, as opposed to utilitarian considerations, there wasn’t much to say. The only right that might be at stake, he said, was “a trivial right—‘ the right to own a gun.’”
Nota - Posizione 17
x UN ESEMPIO
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I contend that individuals have a prima facie right to own firearms, that this right is weighty and protects important interests, and that it is not overridden by utilitarian considerations.
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x TESI CONTRARIA
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2. Preliminary remarks about rights
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t
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2.1. Assumptions about the Nature of Rights
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t
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moral framework I presuppose.
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I assume that individuals have at least some moral rights that are logically prior to the laws enacted by the state, and that these rights place restrictions on what sort of laws ought to be made. I assume that we may appeal to intuitions to identify some of these rights.
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x INTUIZIONISMO
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An example [298] is the right to be free from physical violence: intuitively, it is, ceteris paribus, wrong for people to do violence to one another, and this limits what sort of laws may, morally, be made— it explains, for instance, why the state ought not to pass a law according to which a randomly chosen person in each district is flogged each week.
Nota - Posizione 28
x ESEMPIO
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I further assume that we normally have a right to do as we wish unless there is a reason why we should not be allowed to do so— and hence that one who denies our right to act in a particular way has the dialectical burden to provide reasons against the existence of the right in question.
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x ONERE DELLA PROVA
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2.2. What Sort of Right Is the Right to Own a Gun?
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t
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A right is derivative when it derives at least some of its weight from its relationship to another, independent right. A right is fundamental when it has some force that is independent of other rights.
Nota - Posizione 53
x DIRITTI FONDAMENTALI
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Derivative rights are usually related to fundamental rights as means to the protection or enforcement of the latter,
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c
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Second, I distinguish between absolute and prima facie rights. An absolute right is one with overriding importance, such that no considerations can justify violating it. A prima facie right is one that must be given some weight in moral deliberation but that can be overridden by sufficiently important countervailing considerations.
Nota - Posizione 58
x PRIMA FACIE
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It is doubtful whether any rights are absolute.
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c
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overridden
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exceptions
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To illustrate the distinction: assume that it is morally permissible to kill an aggressor in self-[ 300] defense. This might be permissible in virtue of an exception to the right to life (the aggressor temporarily loses his right not to be killed by his intended victim), rather than because the aggressor’s right to life is overridden.
Nota - Posizione 66
x ECCEZIONE E SUPERAMENTO
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suppose it is permissible to kill an innocent person to save the lives of 1000 others. Plausibly, this is a case of the overriding of the first individual’s right to life,
Nota - Posizione 68
x CASO DI SUPERAMENTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 72
2.3. Weighing Rights
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T
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three broad principles about the weighing of rights.
Nota - Posizione 74
x TRE CRITERI X PESARE UN DIRITTO
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First: Ceteris paribus, the weight of a fundamental right increases with the importance of the right to an individual’s plans for his own life or other purposes.
Nota - Posizione 75
x REALIZZAZIONE DI UNA VITA. DIRITTO IMPORT
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On some theories of self-interest, one’s purposes may diverge from one’s interests. In such a case, I maintain that the weight of a right should be at least partly determined by the rights-bearer’s aims, and not [301] merely by the rights-bearer’s actual interests. Consider an example to motivate this view: imagine a proposed law forbidding all homosexual relationships. Suppose its proponents argue that the law is at most a trivial rights-violation, because homosexual relationships are morally bad, so homosexuals are mistaken in believing they have a positive interest in such relationships. Without entering into a debate concerning the value of homosexuality, we can say that intuitively, the proponents’ argument is invalid: the law would seem to be a major restriction of the civil liberties of homosexuals, regardless of whether homosexuality is healthy or virtuous.
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x CONTA L ANIMO DEL PROT. ES OMOSEX
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Second: In the case of a derivative right, the seriousness of its violation is proportional to the importance of the other right that it subserves.
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x CRITERIO DEL DIRITTO FOND
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 88
Third: The seriousness of a violation of a derivative right also depends upon how important the derivative right is to the other right that it subserves. For example, censorship of books criticizing the government would be a more serious violation of free speech than would censorship of pornographic material, because the ability to publish political criticism is more important to protecting other rights than is the ability to publish pornography.
Nota - Posizione 91
x TERZO POLITICA E PORNO
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3. Is there a prima facie right to own a gun?
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t
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Given the presumption in favor of liberty, there is at least a prima facie right to own a gun,
Nota - Posizione 94
x GUN PRIMA FACIE
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one lacks a right to do things that harm others, treat others as mere means, or use others without their consent. It is difficult to see how owning a gun could itself be said to do any of those things, even though owning a gun makes it easier for one to do those things if one chooses to.
Nota - Posizione 98
x ECCEZIONE POSSIBILE? NO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 100
Consider the principle that one lacks a right to do things that impose unacceptable, though unintended, risks on others. Since life is replete with risks, to be plausible, the principle must use some notion of excessive risks. But the risks associated with normal ownership and recreational use of firearms are minimal. While approximately 77 million Americans now own guns, the accidental death rate for firearms has fallen dramatically during the last century, and is now about .3 per 100,000 population.
Nota - Posizione 103
x RISCHI ECCESSIVI? NO
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citizen is nineteen times more likely to die as a result of an accidental fall, and fifty times more likely to die in an automobile accident, than to die as a result of a firearms accident.
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x CFR
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Nicholas Dixon argues: “In 1990, 34.5% of all murders resulted from domestic or other kinds of argument. Since we are all capable of heated arguments, we are all, in the wrong circumstances, capable of losing control and killing our opponent.”
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x ALTRO CFR
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It might be argued that the total social cost of private gun ownership is significant, that the state is unable to identify in advance those persons who are going to misuse their weapons, and that the state’s only viable method of significantly reducing that social cost is thus to prevent even noncriminal citizens from owning guns.
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x ARGOMENTO DEL COSTO SOCIALE
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this is not an argument against the existence of a prima facie right to own a gun. It is just an argument for overriding any such right.
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x NO. È ARG PER OVERRIDING NN PER IL PRIMA FACIE
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Most gun control advocates would claim, not that there is not even a prima facie right to own a gun, but that the right is a minor one, and that the harms of private gun ownership, in comparison, are very large.
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x OPPOSIZIONE AL DIRITTO
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4. Is the right to own a gun significant?
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t
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4.1. The Recreational Value of Guns
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t
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The recreational uses of guns include target shooting, various sorts of shooting competitions, and hunting. In debates over gun control, participants almost never attach any weight to this recreational value
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x DEF
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charge of frivolousness
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First: One might think life is lexically superior to (roughly, of infinitely greater value than) recreation, such that no amount of recreational value could counterbalance even one premature death.
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x VITA E PASSSTEMPO
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This position is implausible, since recreation is a major source of enjoyment, and enjoyment is (at least) a major part of what gives life value.
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x VITA BIOLOGICA VALORE SCARSO
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non-reproductive sexual activity, reading fiction, watching television or movies, talking with friends, listening to music, eating dessert, going out to eat, playing games, and so on.
Nota - Posizione 141
x ES ATTIVITÀ RICREATIVE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 144
Second, and more plausibly: one might claim that the value of the lives that could be saved by anti-gun laws is simply much greater than the recreational value of firearms.
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x ARGOMENT SEECONDA OB. VITE SASLVATE
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recreational shooting is a way of life.
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At a rough estimate, the number of gun owners is two thousand times greater than the number of annual firearms-related deaths.
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x VITE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 155
this suffices to show that such a prohibition would be a serious rights-violation.
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x SERIA VIOLAZIONE
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4.2. The Right of Self-Defense
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t
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The main argument on the gun rights side goes like this: 1. The right of self-defense is an important right. 2. A firearms prohibition would be a significant violation of the right of self-defense. 3. Therefore, a firearms prohibition would be a serious rights-violation.
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x ARG PRO GUN
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strength of the conclusion depends upon the strength of the premises:
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 164
A killer breaks into a house, where two people—“ the victim” and “the accomplice”— are staying. (The “accomplice” need have no prior interaction with the killer.) As the killer enters the bedroom where the victim is hiding, the accomplice enters through another door and proceeds, for some reason, to hold the victim down while the killer stabs him to death. In this scenario, the killer commits what may be the most serious kind of rights-violation possible.
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x ES UN COMPLICE CHE NN UCCIDE MA È DECISIVO.
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It is common to distinguish killing from letting die. In this example, we see a third category of action: preventing the prevention of a death.
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x PRATICAMENTE OMICIDIO
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intuition of the extreme wrongness of the accomplice’s act
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x GRAVITÀ DEL CFOMPLICE
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Example 2 As in example 1, except that the victim has a gun by the bed, which he would, if able, use to defend himself from the killer. As the killer enters the bedroom, the victim reaches for the gun. The accomplice grabs the gun and runs away, with the result that the killer then stabs his victim to death.
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x ES 2 COMPLICE E ARMA
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The accomplice’s action in this case seems morally comparable to his action in example 1.
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x SIMILITUDINE TRA I DUE ESEMPI
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The analogy between the accomplice’s action in this case and a general firearms prohibition should be clear. A firearms ban would require confiscating the weapons that many individuals keep for self-defense [308] purposes, with the result that some of those individuals would be murdered, robbed, raped, or seriously injured.
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x ANALOGIA
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it might be said that in the case of a gun ban, the government would have strong reasons for confiscating the guns, in order to save the lives
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xOBIEZIONE A CUI SI RISP. DOPO
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it might be argued that example 2 differs from a gun ban in that the murder is imminent
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x IMMINENZA
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suppose that the accomplice, knowing that someone is coming to kill the victim tomorrow (while the victim does not know this), decides to take the victim’s gun away from him today, again resulting in his death.
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x ANCHE SENZA IMMINENZA
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whereas we assume that in example 2 the accomplice knows that the victim is going to be killed or seriously injured, the state does not know that its anti-gun policy will result in murders and injuries to former gun-owners.
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x ALTRA OBIEZIONE SULLA CONOSCENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 202
Although the state may claim that the lives saved by a gun ban would outnumber the lives cost, one cannot argue that no lives will be cost at all, unless one claims implausibly that guns are never used in self-defense against life-threatening attacks.
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x NON VERA
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it may be observed that in example 2, there is a specific, identifiable victim: the accomplice knows who is going to die
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x OB DELL IDENTIFICABILITÀ
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this seems morally irrelevant. Consider: Example 3 An ‘accomplice’ ties up a family of five somewhere in the wilderness where he knows that wolves roam. He has good reason to [309] believe that a pack of wolves will happen by and eat one or two of the family members (after which they will be satiated), but he doesn’t know which ones will be eaten. He leaves them for an hour, during which the mother of the family is eaten by the wolves.
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x MORALMENTE IRRILEVANTE. ESEMPIO
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Fifth, the victims of a gun ban would presumably have sufficient forewarning of the coming ban to take alternative measures to protect themselves, unlike the victim in example 2.
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x OB 5 PREAVVISO E SOLUZ ALTERNAT
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statistics from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicate that such alternative means of self-protection would be relatively ineffective— individuals who defend themselves with a gun are less likely to be injured and far less likely to have the crime completed against them than are persons who take any other measures.
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x ALTERNATIVE INEFGICACI
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5. Are gun rights overridden?
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t
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there is a strong prima facie right to own a gun. [310] Nevertheless, firearms prohibition might be justified, if the reasons for prohibition were strong enough to override that right.
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x POSSIBILITÀ DI SUPERAMENTI
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empirical literature
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5.1. The Case against Guns
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t
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5.1.1. The 43-to-1 Statistic
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t
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One prominent argument claims that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to be used in a suicide, criminal homicide, or accidental death than it is to kill an intruder in self-defense.
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x ANTIGUN. USO DELL ARMA
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Kellerman and Reay made no estimate of the frequency with which guns are used to stop attacks, life-threatening or otherwise; they only considered cases in which someone was killed.
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x SI SORVOLA SULLA DETERRENZA
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A second problem is that 37 of Kellerman and Reay’s 43 deaths were suicides.
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x PREVALENZA SUICIDI
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A third problem is that Kellerman and Reay only counted as “self-defense” cases that were so labeled by the police and the local prosecutor’s office; they ignored the possibility of cases that were later found in court to be self-defense.
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x PROBLEMI CON LA SELF DEFENCE
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5.1.2. International Comparisons
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t
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A second type of argument often used by gun-control proponents relies on comparisons of homicide rates between the United States and other industrialized democracies, such as Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, and Australia.
Nota - Posizione 255
x ANTI GUN. GUARDA AI CFR COI NS SIMILI
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Skeptics suggest that the United States has a number of unique cultural factors that influence the murder rate and that invalidate such cross-country comparisons.
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x USA CULTURA UNICA. ECCEZIONALISMO
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test the claim empirically,
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across jurisdictions
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When we do this, we find that (i) jurisdictions with stricter gun laws tend to have higher crime rates, (ii) shifts to more permissive gun laws tend to be followed by drops in crime rates, (iii) areas with higher gun ownership rates have lower crime rates, and (iv) historically, crime rates have fluctuated with no discernible pattern as the civilian gun stock has increased drastically.
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x SUPERARE LA CULTURA CON I CFR TRA STATI E CONTEE. RISULTATI
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I do not claim to have proved that gun laws cause increased crime or that civilian gun ownership fails to do so. Nor do I deny there is any evidence on the gun control advocates’ side. What I am claiming at this point is that the evidence presented by gun control advocates fails to make a very convincing case for the net harmfulness of private gun ownership.
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x CIÒ CHE SI VUOLE PROVARE
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5.2. The Benefits of Guns
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t
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5.2.1. Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses
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t
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Fifteen surveys, excluding the one discussed in the following paragraph, have been conducted since 1976, yielding estimates of between 760,000 and 3.6 million defensive gun uses per year, the average estimate being 1.8 million.
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15 STUDI SULL USO DOFENSIVO
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Kleck and Gertz’ 1993
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Gun users in 400,000 of these cases believe that the [313] gun certainly or almost certainly saved a life.
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x CREDENZA
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if even one tenth of them were correct, the number of lives saved by guns each year would exceed the number of gun homicides and suicides.
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c
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Kleck’s statistics imply that defensive gun uses outnumber crimes committed with guns by a ratio of about 3: 1.
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c
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One survey, the National Crime Victimization Survey, obtained an estimate an order of magnitude below the others. The NCVS statistics imply something in the neighborhood of 100,000 defensive gun uses per year. Though even this number would establish a significant self-defense value of guns, the NCVS numbers are probably a radical underestimate, given their extreme divergence from all other estimates.
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x LA STIMA PIÙ PESSIMISTA
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NCVS is a non-anonymous survey (respondents provide their addresses and telephone numbers)
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c
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5.2.2. The Benefits of Concealed Weapons
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t
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In the United States, some states prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons. Others have “discretionary”
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x PORTO D ARMI DISCR. OPPORTUNITÀ X STUDIARE
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John Lott and David Mustard conducted a study, probably the most rigorous and comprehensive study
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x LOTT
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Lott’s study uses time-series and cross-sectional data for all 3,054 counties in the United States from 1977 to 1992. Overall, states with shall-issue laws have a violent crime rate just over half (55%) of the rate in other states.
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x RISULTATO
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This alone does not establish that the more restrictive gun laws are a cause of the dramatically higher violent crime rates in the states that have them, since the correlation could be explained by the hypothesis that states that already have higher crime rates are more likely to pass restrictive gun laws. The latter hypothesis, however, would not explain why violent crime rates fell after states adopted shall-issue concealed carry laws.
Nota - Posizione 307
x CAUSA O CORRELAZIONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 308
Lott found that upon the adoption of shall-issue laws, murder rates declined immediately by about 8 percent, rapes by 5 percent, and aggravated assaults by 7 percent, with declines continuing in subsequent years (Lott explains the latter fact by the gradually increasing numbers of individuals obtaining permits).
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c
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Increased availability of guns to citizens, including the ability to carry concealed weapons, increases the risks to would-be criminals of experiencing undesired consequences as a result of attempting a violent crime.
Nota - Posizione 314
x LA TEORIA IN LINEA CON I DATI È DI BUON SENSO
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the theory is more plausible than that offered by gun control supporters. Gun control laws tend to influence the behavior of would-be crime victims much more than the behavior of criminals. Those who are willing to commit violent felonies are much more likely than the average citizen to be willing to commit misdemeanors such as carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.
Nota - Posizione 319
x LA TEORIA PIÙ PLAUSIBILE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 331
5.3. Why a Gun Ban Must Have Much Greater Benefits than Harms to Be Justified
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T
Segnalibro - Posizione 332
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 334
1. It is wrong to murder a person, even to prevent several other killings. (premise) 2. A violation of a person or group’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the death of one of the victims, is morally comparable to murder. (premise) 3. If it is wrong to commit a murder to prevent several killings, then it is wrong to commit a rights-violation comparable to murder to prevent several killings. 4. Therefore, it is wrong to violate a person or group’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the death of one of the victims, even to prevent several killings. (from 1, 2, 3) 5. Therefore, it is wrong to violate a group of people’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the deaths of many of the victims, even to prevent several times as many killings. (from 4) 6. Gun prohibition would violate a group of people’s right of self-defense, predictably resulting in the deaths of many of the victims. (premise) 7. Therefore, gun prohibition is wrong, even if it would prevent several times as many killings as it contributed to. (from 5, 6)
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x QUANTE VITE DOBBIAMO SALVARE PER PROIBIRE? MOLTE MOLTISSIME
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6. Replies to objections
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t
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Objection #1
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t
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in some cases, it is permissible to violate one person’s rights to prevent a comparable harm to a few other people, as in the infamous “trolley car problem”:
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x PREMESSA 1 E TROLLEY
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Those who believe that it is generally worse to punish an innocent person than to let several guilty people go free should consider that principle in the light of this example.
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x LO STANDARD GIUDIZIARIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 425
Objection #2
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T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 426
Perhaps an argument can be made, based on principles similar to those I have used, that the sale of guns is morally wrong. A company that sells many guns can be more or less certain that some of the guns it sells will be used to commit crimes.
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x ACCUSE AL VENDITORE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 431
Seller Responsibility applies in some cases. If I sell a gun to a customer who I know plans to use it to commit a murder, then I am partly responsible for the subsequent murder. If there is merely a high probability that the buyer plans to commit a murder, then I have still acted wrongly, though not as wrongly as in the first case. Likewise, if I run a gun store and I market my guns specifically to criminals, then I am partly responsible for any resulting crimes.
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x GRADI DI COINVOLGIMENTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 435
we cannot accept Seller Responsibility without qualification.
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x CONC
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 437
I propose, therefore, a restricted Seller Reponsibility principle which holds that a seller is responsible for the criminal use of his product only if (i) the product has no morally legitimate uses, (ii) on the information available to the seller, there is a substantial probability, in an individual sale, that the buyer intends to use the product in a morally objectionable manner, or (iii) the seller willfully or negligently fails to take reasonable steps to reduce the chances of selling to criminal users.
Nota - Posizione 441
x SOLUZIONE PROP
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 443
Objection #3
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t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 443
Some object that strong gun rights positions imply the existence of a right to own all sorts of weapons.
Nota - Posizione 444
x OB DEL PIANO INCLINATO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 445
nuclear missile,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 445
While my premises may support some prima facie right to own all manner of weapons, from machine guns to nuclear missiles, the arguments of §4 do not imply that all such prima facie rights are equally weighty, nor do those of §5 imply that the reasons for overriding all such prima facie rights are of equal strength. Based on empirical evidence discussed above, firearms, particularly handguns, are the most effective means of self-defense against violent criminals, while both handguns and rifles are commonly used for recreational purposes. It would be, to say the least, difficult to make a case for the importance of nuclear missiles for either recreational or self-defense purposes,
Nota - Posizione 447
x INTERVIENE L OVERIDING
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 451
7. Extensions of the argument
Nota - Posizione 451
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 453
First, many support a ban on all handguns. Second, many states either prohibit or place severe restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons in public places.
Nota - Posizione 454
x MISURE INTERMEDIE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 454
I think that these measures are also serious rights-violations, though not as serious as a complete gun ban.
Nota - Posizione 455
x POSIZIONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 458
almost no one in our society would carry a gun for self-protection unless they were able to carry it concealed. Almost no one would carry any kind of gun other than a handgun for self-protection. So laws that prevent law-abiding citizens from carrying concealed weapons, or from owning handguns at all, effectively eliminate self-defense uses of guns outside the home, to the extent that the laws are obeyed.
Nota - Posizione 461
x POSIZIONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 462
All mentally competent, noncriminal adults should therefore be allowed to own and carry concealed handguns.
Nota - Posizione 463
x CONCL
