Thoughts
I assume that for those intent on limiting legal availability to guns, it must 
be a moral argument. But what is it? I hope I get that feedback… if limited people’s lawful access to guns is a moral imperative to you, I would love to hear about it! I am not kidding. Remember, not pragmatic… moral.
but let me make a guess:
There are those who believe that humans are basically good… and because they are basically good, they believe that if you remove the external “evil” influences (like guns), then people will not be evil. Maybe it is simpler than evil – maybe it is just “violent”… If we take away the guns, then people will be less violent… in which case, it becomes a crusade to get rid of the evil or violent influencers.
The problem is that people are violent; more, people are evil… or at least tainted by it. Though we have a wonderful potential for goodness and greatness that I assume extends from being created in the image of God…
But we are fallen. We are bent from our original design. We are all born with the predisposition to be selfish, narcissistic liars. My children could lie before they had ever seen anyone lie – we didn’t have to teach them.
People will be violent and lethally so. Those with evil or criminal intent will accomplish these and will do it with the best weapons they can get illegally. To me it seems that for a sane society, it is vital that law abiding citizens be as well armed as criminals. This feels axiomatic to me.
Maybe this isn’t it. If someone else has another moral argument, I would love to engage with it, but I don’t think a pragmatic one is going to work… and if a pragmatic argument doesn’t work, then it isn’t sound as a pragmatic argument.
Freedom
I do have one other thought that, as an American, has struck me recently as I have watched the news on these topics that I want to make note of… Again, I don’t know if I think of government endorsed freedom as a moral issue – my freedom comes from my Creator…
But one of the things that the US was originally founded on was a transcendent concept of human freedoms… that people are, generally speaking, free to choose things (like the pursuit of happiness) on their own.
One pundit after another is asking the same question about various gun components or brands or styles: “Why do you need a __________?”
Silencer
AR-15
Extended clip
Pistol grip
Or whatever…
What troubles me is the question itself rather than the object… or even the answers.
Everyone that I have watched has been answering this question as thought it were a valid question. As an American who likes to think of this as a free country, this bothers me.
Why do you need more than 1 car?
Why do you need to watch daytime news shows?
Why do you need dessert?
Why do you need more than 1 television?
Why do you need to own movies, computers, chairs, more than a couple changes of clothes, more than one pair of shoes…?
You don’t. I don’t.
But this is a free nation, and approximates what the early founders would have believed that government was not supposed to do.
It seems to me that one application of that liberty would mean that it isn’t my responsibility to explain to the government why I want to own something… or why I need it…
Rather, it should be the government’s responsibility to go to extreme measures to make an airtight case that I shouldn’t have the freedom to own something… and I think this was a part of the argument for our national existence.
Right?
Then why are we answering those questions? I want to see an expert, pundit, or someone make this case when asked this question. Has America changed so much that we don’t even start with the assumption of freedom?
Again, this is now still not a moral argument – I don’t know that I believe that people do have a God-given right to pursue happiness… but I do know it is a principle that the nation was founded on. Interesting to me, at least, the shift in thinking.
Ok, I hope that didn’t become too political there at the end, but again, I am looking for what the moral argument might be and maybe it is about equitability. For many, fairness is a moral responsibility… maybe I can write about fairness next.
Chris,
My personal opinion is that all guns should be banned. I know this won’t work in US but at least stop selling AR!! There is no need for private citizens to have them! It appears that we cannot handle that freedom.
You deserve more than a little credit for being open minded. Police investigators of the Sandy Hook shooting released new information in late April. Here is a CNN account:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/28/us/connecticut-shooting-documents
I wonder if the hardest thing about a ban on high-capacity magazines is that it is hard to imagine. Someone goes out and does some pop-pop-pop target shooting with a high-capacity magazine. They look at the gun with the magazine in their gun cabinet. They see the empty spot next to it where they were planning to put the next one they bought. Then they try to imagine that if they weren’t able to buy it, at sometime, somebody somewhere would survive a mass shooting. Everything in our history says that it is true. But I think that it is hard to imagine when we look in our gun cabinet, so we don’t believe it.
I think I understand now what you mean. You think logic and evidence dictate that gun control laws do not work. The “moral argument” you seek would be a claim that we should have them, even though they do not work, because they are morally good.
I do not have any such claim to make for you. I do offer you this evidence and logic.
The reason why we should ban high-capacity magazines is found in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The answer to whether or not a ban on high-capacity magazines will work is found in United States Statutes at Large 1236, enacted by the 73rd Congress.
Investigators found 10 spent or partially spent 30-round capacity magazines at Sandy Hook and 154 spent .223 casings. They estimated these rounds were fired in less than five minutes. Twenty children and six adults were killed. Eleven children escaped when the shooter stopped to reload.
The effect of high-capacity magazines at Sandy Hook is a repetition of what happened when a man shot Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson. He was tackled while reloading his gun, having spent all 33 rounds in his high-capacity magazine. A nine-year-old girl was shot sometime after bullet No. 12.
Because these shooters had high-capacity magazines more people died. It is the very reason they acquired them.
The Sandy Hook shooter’s guns were legally registered in his mother’s name. The Tucson shooter legally purchased his gun. Existing law guarantees that these mass murderers will forever have access to as many high-capacity magazines as they want.
Pick up an issue of the NRA’s American Rifleman Magazine and you can read stories of people using guns to shoot people who broke into their homes. I don’t think you’ll find many if any stories where more than just a few rounds were fired.
We don’t need high-capacity magazines, we just want them. That is why, to be valid, the argument against banning high-capacity magazines is always that it will have no effect whatsoever. Because any lives saved by a ban are worth more than the convenience or emotional satisfaction of using a high-capacity magazine. We have to convince ourselves a ban will fail totally in order to be able continue manufacturing and buying high-capacity magazines.
But there is no evidence in our legal history that a ban would have no effect. Our legal history shows just the opposite.
Statute 1236 of the 73rd Congress was the National Firearms Act enacted on June 26, 1934. It was the beginning of strict federal regulation of machine guns and fully automatic weapons. These 78 years of regulation is why mass murderers do not use fully automatic weapons to kill even more people.
Long-term, strict regulation has been very effective in the case of fully automatic weapons. It makes no sense to argue that it would have no effect whatsoever in the case of high-capacity magazines. We should ban high-capacity magazines.
interesting – I hadn’t heard all of this – so of 300 rounds (10 mags of 30 rounds each) he only shot 154 rounds (the same number as if they were 15 rounds magazines)? I had heard he was shooting only about half of each magazine, and that seems to confirm that (one thought was that he was shooting the same number of rounds as “Call of Duty” guns have in them). Is that your understanding as well?
ok, I think I understand your argument, and I see the moral side to it, I think. If something is merely a want and not a need, but it risks people’s lives, then we should ban it… because us wanting something is not worth the truth that it might cost the lives of innocent people?
1. Something can easily be used to cause the death of an innocent.
2. That thing is not a need, it is only a want.
3. Therefore, that thing should be banned (especially if banning it will effectively make it less accessible).
I am honestly appreciating your input here – it is helping me understand the moral argument.
From your comments and questions I suspect that I don’t understand what you mean by a moral argument. You seem to be close to saying that if with your purest heart and clearest mind you decide to pursue a moral course of action that ends up being pragmatic, then you are not acting based on morality. In your original post you guessed that a moral argument would be declarations about basic human goodness or evil. This does not seem to have much to do with personal morality, but is that more what you are asking for, a kind of explanation of the human condition?
I tried to be pretty clear – a moral argument is one based on an intrinsic understanding of right and wrong, and not needing to be backed by pragmatic or practical arguments. They can link, but not necessarily. If something is morally right or wrong, then whether it is practical is no longer valid…
One author once asked us to imagine a perfect society – perfect except for one thing – in order for the utopia to exist, a child must be systematically abused every day… would we be for it? I hope not. It is apparently perfect from a pragmatic perspective, but would be utterly wrong from a moral one. Think of slavery – it is incredibly effective, but morally wrong.
But what I have hoped for is a moral argument for gun control laws that isn’t based on whether or not the gun control laws “work”… mainly because I think logic and evidence dictate that they do not “work” – assuming of course, that the goal is to reduce gun-crime, or even reduce access to guns for criminals.
Your premise is Them-based. The moral problem with this premise is that it eliminates personal morality.
Personal morality means that I know 11 eleven kids escaped when the gunman at Sandy Hook had to stop and reload. I know the gunman who shot Representative Giffords and 18 others was tackled when he had to stop and reload. I know that banning high-capacity magazines will not ensure that no future mass murderer will ever have them to use. But I know that existing law guarantees that these mass murderers will forever have access to as many high-capacity magazines as they want. I cannot convince myself that I have an airtight case that not banning high-capacity magazines will never cause any one to lose their life. So I make a personal moral decision to support a ban.
It is so easy for us to cast our government for the people and by the people as some ideological Them. It leads us to believe that there is some Them that has to go to extreme measures to make an airtight case that we can’t have what we want. We never even ask ourselves what our own moral course of action should be. We eliminate personal morality.
John, I want to make sure I understand… I meant what I said, that I am looking for the moral argument… and precisely at the personal level. One of my concerns is that by creating a law, we take away the individual personal obligation to make a moral decision… not the opposite…
but your MORAL argument that you seem to be making is that it is morally imperative to support this ban,
the reason being, that it is likely that removing, for example, access to high-capacity magazines* could very likely create a situation in which a victim would live who might have died if the demented shooter did not have one, and therefore was required to re-load, allowing would-be victims time to escape.
And it is thus, a MORAL imperative to create opportunities for people to survive in the midst of these kinds of shooting.
Have I understood you?
Now, generally, your argument was still based on pragmatics – that this would work to save lives, and as a pragmatic argument, I think I might disagree (The shooter at Sandy Hook did have high capacity clips, right?… and is there any indication that making something illegal makes it less likely that a criminal would have access to or use things like high capacity clips?) but I want to understand the MORAL aspect to your argument before responding to it. Have I summarized it correctly above?
*(I may be wrong, but I think the technically correct term would be “clips” – isn’t the magazine a part of the gun that holds the clip? Maybe someone more technically precise could comment on that… I may have gotten that wrong in the article)
Hi Chris, Will is taking Caroline on a Father daughter trip this summer to a camp in California and I’m looking for something special to do w Andrew during that week… Do you have any suggestions? Thanks , Ann
Sent from my iPhone
I would love to hear from others too, but something to do special with mom – have will give him the money to take you on a date while he is gone… a nice place, or, if there is time, have Will strategize a show or something nice to take you to that you would love… that is one. Then, you plan to do something that he will really like that will let you into his world a little – what is really fun for him as a young man? I am assuming staying local – a trip could be pretty cool too… but if local, then another idea is to get a good television series that might be fun to watch together in the evenings…
just some thoughts!
Really good stuff Chris. Loved your approach to this topic. The part I found most interesting was your perspective on the questions being asked i.e. “Why does anyone need to own a …” I have been thinking the same things about why everyone is gung ho to forfeit freedoms so quickly despite sound reasoning of it doing any good to solve the problem at hand.
Ultimately, the topic you cracked was what role the government should play in our lives. You say that “it should be the government’s responsibility to go to extreme measures to make an airtight case that I shouldn’t have the freedom to own something ” I agree and liked how you put this. Question I have for you is what do you feel is causing this shift in the ideology of our country? Is there any way to reverse it?
I think you hit it right on Chris. I think that anyone who thinks can figure it out. The problem is, I don’t think politicians, or at least some of them, think things thru, or are unable to do so. As a martial arts teacher, I can assure anyone that I had rather be shot by a gun than cut with a sword, or large knife, or ax, etc. That is assuming that the blade wielder has minumum skill. A gun is almost a mercy killing compared to the damage done by blades in the past. Oh yes, blades. Remember history, before guns? Death by blades was extremely painful,slow, and, even if you didn’t die within minutes of the blow, you were likely to die later from horrible infection. How dangerous are blades as compared to swords? Well, the samurai engaged in duels, one on one quite often. In those duels, there was a 98% death rate, which included the winners! Yes, only 2% survived thruout history.
And let us not forget serial killers in this country alone.Check the records. Only a small percentage used a gun to kill. The list goes on and own. If it is ok to ban guns because they kill so many, why isn’t it ok to ban anything which kills even more each year? For children alone, 15,000,000 died last year from hunger.And we have the ability to stop that completely if greed and politics didn’t get in the way.How about proscription drugs? 200,000 a year. Hammers are far and away number one for commiting murder. Lets ban them too. Screwdrivers are greatly ahead of knives for stabbings and ahead of guns also for murder. Lets ban them.Automobile accicents are way ahead of murder. Lets all start walking or riding horses and buggies.Drowning,fire,explosions,etc. There are endless ways to die, and endless ways to kill. The answer to accidents is that sometimes things happen no matter how careful we are. The answer to violence is that it is never going to end in the present world. We all must be able to take care of ourselves if we want to cut down on the odds of violence. I have dedicated my life to teaching others to do just that.
But the answer to all problems, in our personal lives, to the government corruption, to world peace, to every problem is to be closer to God. And lets face it, there are just some people who will never turn to HIM, and we have to watch out for them.
So until all the pshyco killers, the mafia, the tong, the russian mob, the street gangs, etc. turn in their guns, and the government that has forgotten that they work for us and not the other way around stop trying to enslave us,I think we all need to be better armed than our enemies, and pray to GOD that we never have to show them just how weak and small they are.
Sorry if I got long winded, but I hope others read this too, and think.