The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
“A covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For (as I have shown before) no man can transfer or lay down his right to save himself from death, wounds, and imprisonment, the avoiding whereof is the only end of laying down any right; and therefore the promise of not resisting force, in no covenant transferreth any right, nor is obliging.” Hobbes “Leviathan”.
“And to this head must likewise be referred such things as are so abhorrent to human nature, that it regards them as actually worse than any evil, as that a man should be witness against himself, or torture himself, or kill his parents, or not strive to avoid death, and the like, to which no one can be induced by rewards or threats. But if we still choose to say, that the commonwealth has the right or authority to order such things, we can conceive of it in no other sense, than that in which one might say, that a man has the right to be mad or delirious. For what but a delirious fancy would such a right be, as could bind no one? “ Spinoza “Political Treatise”
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state.” The Federalist Papers” number 28, Alexander Hamilton.
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” “The Federalist Papers”, number 46, James Madison
“Thus a thief, whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat; because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which, if lost, is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable.” John Locke, “Second Treatise of Government”
“Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.” “The Federalist” number 29, Alexander Hamilton
It is clear that the right to defend yourself was an unalienable natural right in the minds of the political philosophers who inspired the American Revolution, Constitution and Bill of Rights. To suggest that someone can have the right to defend themselves and not have the right to own the means of self-defense, is like saying that someone can have the right to freedom of the press when only government representatives can own the means of publishing information.
In the discussion of cruel and unusual punishment it is noted that throughout history one of the badges of full Citizenship has been protection from torture and corporal punishment. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms has a similar history and is historically as much a badge of actual Citizenship as a legal guarantee against corporal punishment. Quite possibly it should be accorded respect on the basis of this history just as the prohibition against corporal punishment deserves respect on this basis. Aristotle records in his Constitution of Athens how Pisistratus secured the Athenians under his tyranny by confiscating their weapons.
“He effected the disarmament of the people in the following manner. He ordered a parade in full armour in the Theseum, and began to make a speech to the people. He spoke for a short time, until the people called out that they could not hear him, whereupon he bade them come up to the entrance of the Acropolis, in order that his voice might be better heard. Then, while he continued to speak to them at great length, men whom he had appointed for the purpose collected the arms and locked them up in the chambers of the Theseum hard by, and came and made a signal to him that it was done. Pisistratus accordingly, when he had finished the rest of what he had to say, told the people also what had happened to their arms; adding that they were not to be surprised or alarmed, but go home and attend to their private affairs, while he would himself for the future manage all the business of the state.”
It was the overthrow of Pisistratus sons which secured the liberty of the Athenians hailed by Herodotus as quoted in the section of this book on cruel and unusual punishment. Gun control advocates would have loved Pisistratus.
In terms of pecking order behavior, gun control secures the power to injure others to a select few and denies the power to defend oneself from injury to the many. This is potentially exactly the same abuse of Citizens as corporal punishment. It secures the means of inflicting physical harms without retribution to a special class of government servants. The difference between this and the actual infliction of torture and corporal punishment is one of potential. Psychologically the offence against the dignity of the Citizen is almost the same.
This is quite clear in the rhetoric of gun rights advocates which show quite clearly that they feel their dignity as Citizens is threatened by gun control. An armed person is a Citizen, a disarmed person is a Subject. This relationship is fairly clear and simple. It is far removed from the worship of the gun as a phallic emblem which is frequently used to stereotype gun owners.
The psychology of gun control advocates is more complex. They are advocating personal weakness. They desire to give up the means to defend themselves and their homes. They desire only a special class to possess weapons. This suggests one of the demands of the English sailors in the Great Mutiny. They demanded that only aristocrats should be made officers over them. They felt that it was insulting that commoners should command them. A servile class used to having others over them are not insulted by the authority of those others but are insulted when their equals assume an authority or power they do not possess.
The recent debate over arming pilots in civilian aircraft against terrorists underscores this. Pilots are a well educated, highly select, highly intelligent group of persons. Far superior in terms of elite selection to the average police officer or soldier. Many, possibly a majority, of them gained their pilots training as officers in various branches of the Military. To oppose arming such a select group of people already frequently trusted with weapons by the government in prior service is irrational. Yet in a reflexive, knee-jerk, reaction gun control advocates did exactly that. Why?
Some sense of class and status must be involved. Gun control advocates fear allowing responsible trustworthy persons the ability to go armed, even when it is suggested for a group of citizens who are man for man better qualified to bear arms responsibly than the average person already doing so in law enforcement. Nothing but status behavior could explain this.
If the gun is seen as a badge of superior status in a pecking order, then it makes sense. The non-gun owner would see owning a gun as a person claiming the right to abuse those who do not. This would inspire fear of lots of gun crazy people going around abusing their fellow citizens. This kind of a gut instinctive reaction would explain the behaviors of gun control advocates.
Another example which illustrates the relationship between this issue and that of corporal punishment is the assumption on the part of gun rights advocates is that gun control advocates oppose any citizen acting in his or her own defense. It is frequently repeated in gun rights publications that in England today it is illegal to use anything to defend yourself against robbery, rape, or burglary.
Opinions on this issue originating in England vary. Some English will cite the ‘hue and cry’ laws requiring citizens to help catch criminals and other traditions of English Common Law in which citizens can and should defend themselves to refute such arguments. On the other hand many Libertarian sources in England maintain that it is increasingly illegal to defend yourself. Many cases of lawsuits in which people acting in self-defense are grotesquely penalized circulate in gun rights circles.
The facts in the cases are not as important in evaluating this evidence for its psychological significance as the fact that dialogue and debate center around this issue itself. The fact that the feeling of gun rights advocates is that the purpose of these laws is to make self-defense by any means illegal relates directly to pecking order behavior. The feeling is clearly that Citizens are to be reduced to subjects denied the basic right to retaliate against violence against their persons. It does appear that gun control advocates feel a similar outrage when Citizens do act in their own defense, as though the Citizen had somehow assumed a status and authority above their station in life. It appears that the basic behavioral mechanism which triggers the heat and passion in this debate is the question of status. Low status persons or subjects depend on the strong to protect them. High status persons have the right to defend themselves and to own the means to do so. Gun rights advocates see all citizens as high status persons. Gun control advocates see all citizens as low status persons in a pecking order sense.
Gun rights advocates do not see owning a gun as a badge of superiority over their fellow citizens, since those citizens have the same right that they possess. Not seeing the gun as such a badge of power and privilege over others, they do not abuse it. The fears gun control advocates feel are largely groundless because they are based on their own feelings and attitudes towards guns and not on the feelings of those who own guns. Communication between these two camps with such different views is virtually nonexistent. Both sides of the issue desire equality for all Citizens, but the definition of equal is very different. The gun rights people desire all Citizens to be equally high status in terms of physical ability to act in their own defense. The gun control people desire all Citizens to be equally low status in terms of physical ability to act in their own defense.
People who have applied for and obtained carry permits in various states have shown themselves to be among the most responsible and law abiding of citizens. On the other hand, incidents of vandalism, physical abuse, emotional invective, and total loss of self-control in debates on gun ownership are almost typical of the behavior of gun-control advocates.
In terms of impulse control and a sense of personal responsibility in their own behavior, gun control advocates do well to fear guns in the hands of their fellow citizens if they judge their fellow citizens by their own behavior in the public forum. This is not surprising as the choice to not own a gun for self-defense is in itself a choice to refuse to accept personal responsibility.
The RKBA is conspicuously missing from the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the USSR. The RKBA does many things. For many, and indeed for the Framers of the Bill of Rights in the US it represented a guarantee that the State Militias would be able to overthrow the Federal Government if it became tyrannical. It failed in this purpose in the Civil War. Reading “The Federalist Papers” which analyzed these issues before the Bill of Rights was composed leaves no reasonable doubt that this was one of its purposes as the quotes leading into this section show.
For others and in some State Constitutions it is expressly provided as a guarantee of the ability to act effectively in self defense. Discussions of the passage of the 14th amendment show quite clearly that it was meant in this fashion by the Framers of that Amendment. It was meant to guarantee a personal private right to individuals, especially blacks, to own guns to defend themselves against white supremacist groups like the KKK.
“Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. “
The above passage was intended among other things to guarantee Blacks in the South the individual right to own weapons for their own defense against the possible development of groups like the KKK. This amusing fact makes discussion of the intent of the 2nd Amendment virtually meaningless since it was clearly intended by the Framers of the 14th that the RKBA would be an individual right to own weapons for self-defense. There can be no doubt that the RKBA is an individual right in a legal Constitutional sense. Self-defense may be construed as defending oneself against a government become tyrannical, in which case it would fall into the same category as the rights to Free Speech and Assembly.
“The attempt to disarm black people in the South led to the enactment of the 14th Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Racist in the Southern legislature realized that the Second Amendment even guaranteed the right of the now freed blacks to keep and bear arms and then devised a diabolical and cute argument that while the right to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed by the (federal) government it does not apply to the states. In other words, under the state's rights doctrine any state could enact any laws to disarm people. To close this "loophole" the 14th Amendment was enacted by Congress clearly declaring that the restrictions against government abuse enumerated in the Bill of Rights applied to the federal government and to the states as well. Naturally, this law was applauded by black people during Reconstruction. (Source: THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS REPORT OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION, FEBRUARY 1982). http://www.sportsmenscourier.com/WinfieldArticle.htm
“Professor Amar quotes Sen. Samuel Pomeroy, declaring on the floor of the Senate in 1866, "Every man ... should have the right to bear arms for the defense of himself and his family and his homestead. And if the cabin door of the freedman is broken open and the intruder enters for purposes as vile as were known to slavery, then should a well-loaded musket be in the hand of the occupant." Even Rep. Henry Raymond, a founder and editor of the New York Times, declared that the black freedman "has a country and a home; a right to defend himself and his wife and children; a right to bear arms."“
"Today's NRA," professor Amar concludes, "pays far too much attention to 1775-91 and far too little to 1830-68." From Professor Akhil Reed Amar’s “The Bill of Rights” 1998. http://wws.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$519
http://216.117.156.23/features/barrel_twist/1999/july/naacp_suit.shtml
"The Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to thereby reduce the unlawful homicides that were prevalent in turpentine and saw-mill camps and to give the white citizens in sparsely settled areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population... There has never been, within my knowledge, any effort to enforce the provisions of this statute as to white people, because it has been generally conceded to be in contravention of the Constitution and non-enforceable if contested." This quote, from Watson v. Stone, sums up the racist history of gun control in the United States much better than I could.” Bill Twist.
The NAACP in coming down on the side of gun control laws has adopted the same position which has historically been maintained by the KKK. The NAACP by maintaining that guns should be illegal because of the high rate of violent crime in the black community has assumed the same position held by white racists and supremacists throughout the history of this country. The NAACP has formally and officially announced in its policy on gun control that white racists have been right all along and that black people are an inferior race incapable of being trusted with the traditional rights and responsibilities of real Citizens. No self-respecting black person should be able to stomach this adoption of traditional white supremacist doctrines by the NAACP. No self-respecting black person could remain a member of, or be associated, with the NAACP after this action on its part.
A Natural and Necessary Right
The question is, is the RKBA a Natural Right. If a Citizen has the ability to own a gun or other weapon to use in his own defense, he has the ability to act in his own defense. If he cannot own such a weapon, he cannot act. Loss of the RKBA breaks the relationship between work and reward, action and result at the first link. It prevents the Citizen from having the ability to act and thus he cannot be rewarded with the preservation of his own life and those of his loved ones.
This violates line two of Maslow’s list of needs, 2) Safety/security: out of danger;” by making it impossible for the Citizen to act meaningfully to accomplish those goals. The rhetoric associated with gun control laws on both sides clearly mark gun ownership as a badge of status, outlawing guns frustrates the need of Citizens for respect and trust. As it forces people to accept a status which is instinctively subordinate and helpless, it prevents self-actualization. Gun Control laws prevent the full actualization of Citizens required under Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Free societies want to promote freedom, initiative, and self-empowerment on the part of their citizens. Gun Control laws suppress these things in much the same manner that corporal punishment apparently does.
A free society works to maximize the potential of all its Citizens trusting that its greatest strength is the strength of its Citizens. A Citizen who is denied the right or ability to act effectively in his own defense cannot be said to be allowed to maximize his own potential. Gun Control laws act to weaken the individual Citizen, not strengthen him. They are antithetical to the principals on which of a free society is founded and closely tied to totalitarian regimes and tyrannies historically.
This violation also implicitly creates an obligation on the government to provide the need that the state denies the Citizen the ability to secure for himself. This is an implicit socialist right, and like all socialist rights it violates Natural Law by separating effort and result. Supporters of gun control laws will be able to quote this book on the proper role of the State of Social Contract being limited to providing only physical security and safety to the Citizens and not guaranteeing their economic welfare in defense of Gun Control Laws.
This argument sounds valid. Raising it serves to demonstrate that to some degree Gun Rights falls into a gray area with regard to the proper actions and powers of the State. It is however false. History demonstrates that it is false. In reality where guns and similar arms are confiscated by the state a citizens ability to act in his own defense and the defense of others becomes atrophied and the state is generally unable to act effectively in his defense. Adam Smith’s invisible hand works for self-defense as well as in other areas where individuals need to work to accomplish their own goods. They do a more effective job if allowed the tools and initiative to act towards their own best interests.
There are fundamental problems involved in the RKBA, but they are not insurmountable. Appropriate legal penalties for the abuse of the RKBA can prevent those abuses far better than laws against owning guns can prevent them.