Visualizzazione post con etichetta #huemer armi. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta #huemer armi. Mostra tutti i post

sabato 14 gennaio 2017

Non parlare, spara!

"Is There a Right to Own a Gun?"di Mike Huemer.
Per me la miglior difesa disponibile sul mercato del diritto ad armarsi. Argomenti di diritto e di fatto ben miscelati e presentati con maestria. Ne esce un trattato completo e convincente.
Partiamo dal dubbio assunto  implicito nella posizione di troppi proibizionisti...
... 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...
Per loro non esisterebbe nemmeno un diritto a priori di armarsi, l'unica cosa che conta sarebbero le ripercussioni che le armi liberamente circolanti hanno sui crimini.  Esempio...
... 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.’”...
Ma il buon senso ci chiede di impostare il problema diversamente...
... 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...
Cosa assumere per partire con un'analisi più completa?
Innanzitutto il fatto che le persone hanno dei diritti...
... 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...
Per esempio: non posso essere pestato dalla polizia se non ho fatto nulla di male. Ok?...
... 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...
Poi: questi diritti possono essere limitati solo se esistono valide ragioni...
... 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...
La prova di validità deve essere fornita da chi intende limitare i diritti.
Altro assunto: ci sono diritti fondamentali e diritti derivati (questi ultimi sono strumentali ai primi)...
... 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... Derivative rights are usually related to fundamental rights as means to the protection or enforcement of the latter...
Altro assunto: distinguiamo tra diritti assoluti e diritti "prima facie"...
... 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.... It is doubtful whether any rights are absolute...
I diritti assoluti non possono mai essere "superati". Probabilmente nemmeno esistono, in ogni caso qui non se ne parla.
Un diritto prima facie, al contrario, può essere “superato” in casi particolari.
Non confondiamo il "superamento" con l'"eccezione". Quest'ultima serve solo a definire meglio il diritto in oggetto. Facciamo il caso della legittima difesa...
... 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...
Se l'aggressore soccombe non è perché viene "superato" il suo diritto a non subire violenze ma perché lo perde nel momento stesso in cui aggredisce la sua vittima.
Un caso classico di "superamento" è quello  del "vagone fuori controllo" o "problema del trolley"...
... 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...
Qui sacrifico una vita innocente per salvarne mille. I diritti del sacrificato restano intatti ma chi lo sacrifica decide che sono "superati" da esigenze di forza maggiore.
Quando un diritto è particolarmente importante?
Di solito quando pesa nel realizzare i piani del soggetto che lo esercita...
... 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...
Chi decide su questo punto? Il soggetto stesso. Esempio dell'omosessualità: non posso impedirne la pratica decidendo io che per l'omosessuale non è poi così importante...
... 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...
Da quanto detto si evince un diritto prima facie a detenere delle armi...
... Given the presumption in favor of liberty, there is at least a prima facie right to own a gun...
Non sembra proprio che un diritto del genere possa soffrire "eccezioni" nel senso specificato sopra. Detenendo un'arma io non faccio del male a nessuno, almeno in modo diretto, quindi...
... 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...
Nemmeno sottopongo terze persone a rischi particolarmente elevati: detenere una piscinetta è più rischioso...
... 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....
Ci sono comportamenti molto più rischiosi che noi ci guardiamo bene dal proibire...
... 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...
Essere bruschi nelle conversazioni è estremamente rischioso: uno scarso self control è molto peggio di un'arma carica, eppure non è una buona ragione per limitare la libertà d'espressione...
... 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.”...
C'è poi un argomento legato al costo sociale delle armi detenute dai privati...
... 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...
Ma questo non è un argomento valido per stabilire un'eccezione, semmai per "superare" il diritto...
... 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...
Veniamo allora al caso del "superamento". Molti riconoscono il diritto ad armarsi ma non lo considerano molto importante, quindi facilmente superabile...
... 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...
Di certo esiste un valore ricreativo nel detenere armi...
... 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...
Ma per i proibizionisti si tratta solo di un passatempo trascurabile...
... 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...
Questa posizione è però improbabile...
... 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...
Potremmo chiamarla posizione "biologicista": una mera vita biologica vale molto più dei suoi contenuti. È una posizione tipicamente moderna (atea) per il religioso, per esempio, una vita senza fede ha scarso valore, e se ce l'ha ce l' ha perché la conversione è sempre possibile, non per il fatto biologico in sè. L’uomo moderno invece è più propenso a idolatrare la vita biologica in sé, il che significa che pur di salvarne una è disposto a sacrificare molto sui contenuti.
Ma limitiamoci a citare alcune attività  ricreative per comprendere quanto squallida possa essere una vita che non le contempla...
... non-reproductive sexual activity, reading fiction, watching television or movies, talking with friends, listening to music, eating dessert, traveling, going out to eat, playing games, and so on...
Per molte persone avere armi e sparare è uno stile di vita. Non bisogna condividerlo per registrare che è così: lo dicono loro e a noi basta. Come per l’omosessuale di cui sopra.
Ma nel nostro caso c'è di più: detenere un'arma può salvarmi la vita. E così anche i “biologisti” sono serviti…
... 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...
2000 a 1. È il rapporto tra vittime della proibizione e vite salvate dalla proibizione. Già di per sè la proibizione sembra una violazione seria di un diritto...
... At a rough estimate, the number of gun owners is two thousand times greater than the number of annual firearms-related deaths... this suffices to show that such a prohibition would be a serious rights-violation....
Vediamo più nel dettaglio l'argomento pro-gun...
... this suffices to show that such a prohibition would be a serious rights-violation... 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...
Ma di che natura morale è la proibizione di detenere un'arma per autodifesa. Proponiamo un'analogia...
... 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....
Il complice immobilizza la vittima mentre il killer lo uccide. In un caso del genere il complice ha responsabilità simili a quelle dell'assassino...
... 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...
Ma forse l'analogia più pertinente è un'altra...
... 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...
Qui il complice impedisce alla vittima di raggiungere l'arma per difendersi. La sua responsabilità morale non sembra molto diminuita...
... The accomplice’s action in this case seems morally comparable to his action in example 1...
La gravità della proibizione assoluta sembra dunque fuori discussione...
... 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....
Possibili disanalogie: l'imminenza del crimine...
... it might be argued that example 2 differs from a gun ban in that the murder is imminent...
Ma si può cambiare il caso prospettato eliminando l'imminenza del crimine senza che cambi la portata etica delle conseguenze...
... 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...
Altra obiezione: la conoscenza. Il complice sa bene cosa implica il suo comportamento...
... 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...
Ma anche il proibizionista sa che delle vite saranno sacrificato. Potrà dire che altre saranno salvate ma non potrà mai negare la presenza di capri espiatori nella sua soluzione...
... 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...
Altra obiezione: nell' analogia la vita sacrificata è ben identificata, nel caso di una proibizione è una vita statistica...
... it may be observed that in example 2, there is a specific, identifiable victim: the accomplice knows who is going to die...
Ma una vita statistica non è meno reale. L'osservazione sembrerebbe quindi moralmente irrilevante...
... 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....
Altra obiezione: nel caso del proibizionismo c'è un preavviso e quindi il tempo per mettersi in salvo adottando soluzioni alternative...
... 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...
Ma le alternative possibili non sembrano molto efficaci...
... 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....
Veniamo infine all'obiezione più comune...
... 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...
Insomma: il diritto sarà anche importante,, la sua violazione sarà anche grave ma ci sono buone ragioni per non rispettarlo. In altri termini, il diritto può essere "superato"...
... 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...
E qui si passa alla parte pratica: il proibizionista deve fornire prove convincenti che esistono buone ragioni per violare in modo importante un diritto che riconosce come "fondamentale".
Di solito viene citato il rapporto 43:1...
... 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...
Su 43 usi dell'arma uno solo è per autodifesa.
Ma limitarsi a questa considerazione trascura l'effetto deterrente dell'arma...
... 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...
Posso salvarmi la vita rispondendo all’aggressore o facendolo desistere a priori. Questa seconda forma – per altro la più comune – non viene conteggiata nel rapporto.
Ma il punto fondamentale è un altro...
... A second problem is that 37 of Kellerman and Reay’s 43 deaths were suicides...
37 utilizzi sono per suicidio.
Ora, il suicidio per molti resta un problema, non si puo’ negarlo. Ma non si puo’ nemmeno negare che si tratta di un problema molto diverso da quello che hanno in mente molti proibizionisti. Tra suicidio e aggressione il discrimine etico è netto.
Questa statistica, poi, ha un altro problema...
... 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...
Veniamo ora alla seconda arma dei proibizionisti: i  confronti internazionali...
... 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....
Ma forse il mix etnico e la cultura USA sono uniche. Non a caso per molti fenomeni sociali si parla di "eccezionalismo" americano, mi viene in mente il tema della secolarizzazione...
... 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...
Meglio allora che i test empirici si facciano all'interno degli USA tra stati e contee che in materia di armi hanno regolamentazioni diverse, in questo modo il fattore culturale è neutralizzato.
Esito...
... 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...
Alcuni concludono: più armi =》meno crimini. Azzardato. Fortunatamente a noi basta molto meno...
... 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...
Basta concludere che l'evidenza di chi sostiene il contrario è alquanto debole, e comunque non sufficiente per colpire in modo importante un diritto fondamentale delle persone.
Torniamo allora per un attimo sull'importanza di questo diritto: ci sono parecchi studi anche sull'uso difensivo delle armi, almeno una quindicina...
... 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...
E per quanto riguarda le vite salvate? In Kleck and Gertz’ 1993...
... Gun users in 400,000 of these cases believe that the [313] gun certainly or almost certainly saved a life... 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... Kleck’s statistics imply that defensive gun uses outnumber crimes committed with guns by a ratio of about 3: 1...
Per ogni vita perduta ce ne sarebbero tre salvate.
Anche la stima più pessimista non cambia di molto le cose...
... 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.... NCVS is a non-anonymous survey (respondents provide their addresses and telephone numbers)...
Ma gli stati si differenziano anche sulla legislazione in materia di porto d'armi, un esperimento naturale che cade a fagiolo e che merita di essere approfondito… 
... In the United States, some states prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons. Others have “discretionary”... John Lott and David Mustard conducted a study, probably the most rigorous and comprehensive study...
Cosa dicono i dati?...
... 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...
Ancora: dove le armi circolano più liberamente i crimini sono inferiori.
Ripetiamo: a noi non interessa dimostrare un nesso tra le due cose (come fa chi coerentemente invita a sussidiare l’acquisto di armi)! Interessa solo far notare come i proibizionisti siano ben lungi dall'aver dimostrato alcunché.
... 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... 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)...
Ma c’è di più: sulle armi è possibile elaborare una teoria alternativa a quella dei proibizionisti che sembrerebbe più in linea con i dati, oltre che con il buon senso...
... 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....
La teoria è semplice e lineare: se la vittima predestinata è armata, il rischio per il criminale è più elevato e spesso tutto questo implica una rinuncia a colpire.
D'altronde, laddove si proibisce la detenzione delle armi il divieto, di fatto, vale solo per le vittime, il criminale è già fuori dalla legge e quindi non ha problemi ad aggirarla anche su questo punto...
... 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...
Chiediamoci ora che evidenza occorre per giungere alla proibizione? Quante vite dobbiamo salvare per procedere ad una proibizione e quindi al sacrificio di altre vite? Molte, moltissime. Ricapitoliamo nel dettaglio la teoria di fondo...
... 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)...
Nessuno nega che in via di principio alcune vite possano essere sacrificate per salvarne altre. Si tratta del ben noto problema del "vagone fuori controllo" a cui accennavamo anche prima...
... 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”...
Quante vite ti sono sufficienti per sacrificare una vita innocente? 10? 100? 1000?: proibire significa di fatto deviare il vagone su un binario dove delle vite innocenti periranno.
È una situazione simile a quella dello standard giudiziario...
... 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...
Quanti colpevoli in libertà vogliamo tollerare per ogni innocente in galera? Le sensibilità sono diverse ma il problema deve essere chiaro.
Passiamo ora a un problema diverso ma collegato: quali sono le colpe di chi vende le armi?...
... 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...
gradi di coinvolgimento con le malefatte di un cattivo utilizzatore sono  molto diversi...
... 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...
Un commerciante che vende al pubblico non ha responsabilità, uno stato che vende ad un altro stato con evidenti secondi fini è chiaramente responsabile.
Una possibile soluzione del dilemma...
... 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...
C'è un'altra obiezione: ragionando in questi termini, un privato potrebbe detenere una testata nucleare...
... Some object that strong gun rights positions imply the existence of a right to own all sorts of weapons.... nuclear missile...
Qui in realtà basta ripercorrere il ragionamento fatto per constatare che molti passaggi non possono valere per armi eccezionali...
... 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...
Alcuni stati adottano misure intermedie
… 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…
Come giudicarle? In realtà non sembra che la musica cambi granché, almeno con le misure citate….
… I think that these measures are also serious rights-violations, though not as serious as a complete gun ban… 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… All mentally competent, noncriminal adults should therefore be allowed to own and carry concealed handguns…
Bisognerebbe individuare i soggetti più a rischio di un uso improprio. Per esempio: neri tra i 15 e i 25. Ma il divieto ai minori già esiste e il divieto razziale è inconcepibile.
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venerdì 13 gennaio 2017

Is There a Right to Own a Gun? Michael Huemer

Notebook per
Is There a Right to Own a Gun?
Michael Huemer
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
Nota - Posizione 13
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.
Nota - Posizione 14
x ASSUNTO SBAGLIATO DEI PROIBIZIONISTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 15
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 19
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.
Nota - Posizione 20
x TESI CONTRARIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 22
2. Preliminary remarks about rights
Nota - Posizione 22
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 22
2.1. Assumptions about the Nature of Rights
Nota - Posizione 23
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 23
moral framework I presuppose.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 24
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.
Nota - Posizione 25
x INTUIZIONISMO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 25
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 28
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.
Nota - Posizione 30
x ONERE DELLA PROVA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 50
2.2. What Sort of Right Is the Right to Own a Gun?
Nota - Posizione 51
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 51
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 53
Derivative rights are usually related to fundamental rights as means to the protection or enforcement of the latter,
Nota - Posizione 54
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 56
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 60
It is doubtful whether any rights are absolute.
Nota - Posizione 60
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 61
overridden
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 62
exceptions
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 63
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 67
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
Nota - Posizione 73
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 74
three broad principles about the weighing of rights.
Nota - Posizione 74
x TRE CRITERI X PESARE UN DIRITTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 74
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 77
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.
Nota - Posizione 83
x CONTA L ANIMO DEL PROT. ES OMOSEX
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 85
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.
Nota - Posizione 86
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 93
3. Is there a prima facie right to own a gun?
Nota - Posizione 94
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 94
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 96
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 103
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.
Nota - Posizione 105
x CFR
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 107
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.”
Nota - Posizione 108
x ALTRO CFR
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 117
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.
Nota - Posizione 119
x ARGOMENTO DEL COSTO SOCIALE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 119
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.
Nota - Posizione 120
x NO. È ARG PER OVERRIDING NN PER IL PRIMA FACIE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 125
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.
Nota - Posizione 127
x OPPOSIZIONE AL DIRITTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 127
4. Is the right to own a gun significant?
Nota - Posizione 127
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 130
4.1. The Recreational Value of Guns
Nota - Posizione 130
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 131
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
Nota - Posizione 132
x DEF
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 134
charge of frivolousness
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 135
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.
Nota - Posizione 136
x VITA E PASSSTEMPO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 138
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.
Nota - Posizione 139
x VITA BIOLOGICA VALORE SCARSO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 140
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.
Nota - Posizione 145
x ARGOMENT SEECONDA OB. VITE SASLVATE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 147
recreational shooting is a way of life.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 147
At a rough estimate, the number of gun owners is two thousand times greater than the number of annual firearms-related deaths.
Nota - Posizione 148
x VITE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 155
this suffices to show that such a prohibition would be a serious rights-violation.
Nota - Posizione 155
x SERIA VIOLAZIONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 155
4.2. The Right of Self-Defense
Nota - Posizione 156
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 156
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.
Nota - Posizione 160
x ARG PRO GUN
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 160
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.
Nota - Posizione 168
x ES UN COMPLICE CHE NN UCCIDE MA È DECISIVO.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 175
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.
Nota - Posizione 176
x PRATICAMENTE OMICIDIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 179
intuition of the extreme wrongness of the accomplice’s act
Nota - Posizione 179
x GRAVITÀ DEL CFOMPLICE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 184
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.
Nota - Posizione 186
x ES 2 COMPLICE E ARMA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 187
The accomplice’s action in this case seems morally comparable to his action in example 1.
Nota - Posizione 188
x SIMILITUDINE TRA I DUE ESEMPI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 189
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.
Nota - Posizione 191
x ANALOGIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 193
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
Nota - Posizione 194
xOBIEZIONE A CUI SI RISP. DOPO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 196
it might be argued that example 2 differs from a gun ban in that the murder is imminent
Nota - Posizione 197
x IMMINENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 198
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.
Nota - Posizione 199
x ANCHE SENZA IMMINENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 200
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.
Nota - Posizione 202
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.
Nota - Posizione 204
x NON VERA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 205
it may be observed that in example 2, there is a specific, identifiable victim: the accomplice knows who is going to die
Nota - Posizione 206
x OB DELL IDENTIFICABILITÀ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 207
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.
Nota - Posizione 211
x MORALMENTE IRRILEVANTE. ESEMPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 214
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.
Nota - Posizione 215
x OB 5 PREAVVISO E SOLUZ ALTERNAT
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 215
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.
Nota - Posizione 218
x ALTERNATIVE INEFGICACI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 226
5. Are gun rights overridden?
Nota - Posizione 226
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 227
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.
Nota - Posizione 228
x POSSIBILITÀ DI SUPERAMENTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 232
empirical literature
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 234
5.1. The Case against Guns
Nota - Posizione 234
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 234
5.1.1. The 43-to-1 Statistic
Nota - Posizione 234
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 235
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.
Nota - Posizione 236
x ANTIGUN. USO DELL ARMA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 239
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.
Nota - Posizione 240
x SI SORVOLA SULLA DETERRENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 243
A second problem is that 37 of Kellerman and Reay’s 43 deaths were suicides.
Nota - Posizione 244
x PREVALENZA SUICIDI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 250
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.
Nota - Posizione 252
x PROBLEMI CON LA SELF DEFENCE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 253
5.1.2. International Comparisons
Nota - Posizione 253
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 253
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 256
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.
Nota - Posizione 257
x USA CULTURA UNICA. ECCEZIONALISMO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 258
test the claim empirically,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 258
across jurisdictions
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 260
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.
Nota - Posizione 263
x SUPERARE LA CULTURA CON I CFR TRA STATI E CONTEE. RISULTATI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 263
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.
Nota - Posizione 265
x CIÒ CHE SI VUOLE PROVARE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 269
5.2. The Benefits of Guns
Nota - Posizione 269
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 269
5.2.1. Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses
Nota - Posizione 269
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 270
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.
Nota - Posizione 272
15 STUDI SULL USO DOFENSIVO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 272
Kleck and Gertz’ 1993
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 273
Gun users in 400,000 of these cases believe that the [313] gun certainly or almost certainly saved a life.
Nota - Posizione 274
x CREDENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 275
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.
Nota - Posizione 275
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 278
Kleck’s statistics imply that defensive gun uses outnumber crimes committed with guns by a ratio of about 3: 1.
Nota - Posizione 279
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 284
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.
Nota - Posizione 286
x LA STIMA PIÙ PESSIMISTA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 287
NCVS is a non-anonymous survey (respondents provide their addresses and telephone numbers)
Nota - Posizione 288
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 294
5.2.2. The Benefits of Concealed Weapons
Nota - Posizione 294
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 294
In the United States, some states prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons. Others have “discretionary”
Nota - Posizione 295
x PORTO D ARMI DISCR. OPPORTUNITÀ X STUDIARE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 301
John Lott and David Mustard conducted a study, probably the most rigorous and comprehensive study
Nota - Posizione 302
x LOTT
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 302
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.
Nota - Posizione 304
x RISULTATO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 304
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).
Nota - Posizione 311
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 313
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
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 317
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
Nota - Posizione 332
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)
Nota - Posizione 344
x QUANTE VITE DOBBIAMO SALVARE PER PROIBIRE? MOLTE MOLTISSIME
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 374
6. Replies to objections
Nota - Posizione 374
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 374
Objection #1
Nota - Posizione 374
t
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 375
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”:
Nota - Posizione 376
x PREMESSA 1 E TROLLEY
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 388
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.
Nota - Posizione 389
x LO STANDARD GIUDIZIARIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 425
Objection #2
Nota - Posizione 425
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.
Nota - Posizione 427
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.
Nota - Posizione 434
x GRADI DI COINVOLGIMENTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 435
we cannot accept Seller Responsibility without qualification.
Nota - Posizione 435
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
Nota - Posizione 443
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