If the purpose of guns were to kill, cops would not be allowed to have them because, in civilized countries contrary to James Bond movies, they don’t have a license to kill.
A tool or instrument, observed Friedrich Hayek, cannot be defined outside of human purposes. For example, the definition of a hammer must include what most people want it for, that is, as the online Merriam-Webster dictionary tells us, “for pounding.” In his 1942 Economica article “Scientism and the Study of Society” (reproduced in his The Counter-Revolution of Science), Hayek noted:
Take the concept of a “tool” or “instrument,” or of any particular tool such as a hammer or a barometer. It is easily seen that these concepts cannot be interpreted to refer to “objective facts,” that is, to things irrespective of what people think about them. … If the reader will attempt a definition he will soon find that he cannot give one without using some term such as “suitable for” or “intended for” or some other expression referring to the use for which it is designed by somebody. And a definition which is to comprise all instances of the class will not contain any reference to its substance, or shape, or other physical attribute.
An automobile is, to quote Merriam-Webster again, an “automotive vehicle designed for passenger transportation.” People use it to go from point A to point B. Under this general purpose lie many specific ones. For many, A will be mainly their homes and B, their workplaces. Some, no doubt, will use their car to go and commit a bank robbery, and escape afterwards. For terrorists, the space between point A and point B may be any place where there are pedestrians to crush. Collectors and museums may even dispense with the transportation function, although the original purpose remains part of the attraction.
Now, consider a gun. The most general definition of Merriam-Webster is “a device that throws a projectile.” Some individuals may use the projectile-throwing power to kill—a killer-for-hire or a terrorist, for example. But most will use it for another purpose: to assure their own self-defense or to defend others against criminals, or even to protect their property or their customers’ property. Armored truck personnel carry guns as a disincentive to would-be robbers. When they own or carry a gun, some individuals are buying peace of mind, knowing that they have an efficient means of self-defense in case they ever need it. Collectors do not even use a gun to throw a projectile, but instead to showcase it.
The purpose of a gun is not generally to kill. A handgun is designed for self-defense at short distances. Hitting a target farther than 100 feet or even just 50 feet is difficult: by then, the bullet has lost much of its speed and energy, and dropped significantly. Although a handgun may kill or maim an aggressor, its purpose is to stop him, to stop the threat. Hence the discussion of the “stopping power” of caliber (diameter of the bullet) versus velocity.
Criminals use handguns to commit aggressions, as they can use cars to travel where their victims are. But killing is not the (general) purpose of a car, nor is it really that of a handgun. If one is intent on killing, a long gun (rifle or shotgun) is more convenient. In the state where I live (as I suspect in many other states), one may carry a loaded handgun in a car but not a long gun. The reason is that a long gun is not efficient for self-defense, especially in a confined place, while it would be very effective at ambushing somebody (or indiscriminately shooting people).
Even in the case of long guns, it is at misleading to state that the purpose is to kill—at least to kill another human. For many if not most owners of long guns, the purpose is to hunt animals or for protection against four-legged predators such as brown or white bears. Even if many owners of long guns probably think that they could come handy during civil (or government) disturbances, the main purpose would remain to stop the threat, not necessarily to kill the threatening individuals.
Thus, the purpose of guns is not to kill, except in particular, and often criminal, circumstances. The purpose of a gun is to neutralize threats and deter aggressors. Even if we assume that allowing guns results in more murders than banning them (which I don’t think is supported by available evidence), it does not follow that government should ban them, whether abruptly or stealthily. We encounter here the general problem of cost-benefit analysis: What allows us to say that preventing the possible killing of some unknown Mr. and Mrs. X in the future is worth more than prohibiting a known Miss Y from owning or carrying a gun for self-defense hic et nunc?
Moreover, it does not take much imagination to include in the calculus the detrimental consequences of raising children in a society where the idea prevails that state agents have rights that their subjects don’t have.
The mantra that “the purpose of a gun is to kill” is used by those who think that ordinary citizens should be prevented from having guns because they don’t have the right to defend themselves, that such rights belong exclusively to government agents. The British and Canadian experience shows that the ultimate purpose of most gun control proponents is to disarm ordinary people and abolish their right of self-defense—and, perhaps unconsciously, the underlying sentiment of self-reliance and independence. Once this becomes clear, one realizes how crucial is the Second Amendment in defining America, an exceptional land where ordinary citizens (and all legal residents) have the right to own and, in many cases, to carry guns just like government agents do. In truth, government agents have a moral right to carry guns only because private individuals have it.
READER COMMENTS
Jamie
Sep 2 2019 at 7:02am
Why should Government decide what is useful for self defence? If someone wants to own a long gun for their defence, why not let them?
Is part of the American gun ownership creed “being necessary to the security of a free State”, and not just personal self-defence?
Or, if you accept that gun control is necessary for long guns (not being necessary for self-defence), why not hand guns?
Is it not reasonable to say that in most situations, brandishing a gun escalates the situation towards violence and leads to suppression of other rights? Intimidation rather than the rule of law?
Pierre Lemieux
Sep 2 2019 at 11:11am
Jamie: Your comment is right, but it does not contradict what I said or meant to say. Either I was not explicit enough or you read too fast–or both. I don’t believe that long guns should be controlled by government. I meant to say that one proof that the purpose of guns is not to kill is that this is obviously not the purpose of handguns. My paragraph on long guns (starting with “Even in the case of long guns, it is at misleading to state that the purpose is to kill”) should have made my position clear.
Ben
Sep 2 2019 at 7:57am
Bizarre moral reasoning. I don’t see how the right to bear arms in anyway encourages self-reliance or promotes the idea that the state is entitled to rights the individual is not. In my country (the UK), the state simply doesn’t need to use its power to have arms most of the time, because citizens don’t have them.
Rather, the increasingly controlling, safety obsessed child rearing we see, especially in America due to increasing gun deaths, is probably contributing to young people’s increasingly left-wing views and desire to be coddled by the state in later life.
What’s more, guns’ purpose may not be ‘to kill’, but their use as a method of self-defence is astoundingly poor. Guns require extensive training to be used remotely effectively, even more so in a terrifying act of self defence. I highly doubt they make the average person safer, more likely the opposite through a higher probability of suicide.
Virtually all the evidence we have shows that each additional gun held by a normal citizen makes everyone in that society – including the gun owner – less free, less safe and more likely to die horrifically. These shouldn’t be libertarian values.
Pierre Lemieux
Sep 2 2019 at 11:01am
Ben: Just three short points.
(1) Guns don’t require “extensive training”, but very little compared to other means of self-defense. And many ordinary American citizens train more often than the typical cop. (I shoot 50 rounds in self-defense mode every two weeks with pistols, to take an example at random!) See the FBI report on mass shootings in 2016-2017: in at least 8% of the cases, the shooting was stopped by an ordinary armed citizen. See also a previous post of mine on this.
(2) I don’t think you know the history of firearms control in your country. You need to read at least Colin Greenwood’s Firearms Control: A Study of Armed Crime and Firearms Control in England and Wales (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972). Greenwood was a police chief inspector when he wrote this book on a Cambridge fellowship. Spoiler: firearm controls in Britain had little if anything to do with controlling crime.
(3) On the impact of guns on crimes, the evidence is at best mixed. Joyce Malcolm’s book linked to in my post, although it is a bit dated, should give you some perspective on conventional wisdom. But you should read Greenwood first.
ECharles
Sep 2 2019 at 9:03am
Pierre- you need to explain why citizens should be able to own guns with high capacity shooting capability but not other items such as grenades, tanks, and rocket launchers. If the justification is simply self-defense, then revolvers (no high capacity clips) should suffice and they are MUCH less effective at indiscriminately killing large amounts of individuals (e.g., bump stock Vegas killer). If the justification is ultimately to keep government in check, then you should advocate for legalizing grenades, tanks, etc. since guns are no match for government as it stands.
Pierre Lemieux
Sep 2 2019 at 12:22pm
ECharles: I don’t think your question has received a complete and valid answer. Elements of the answer exist, though:
(1) A simple point: If high-capacity magazines are forbidden for citizens, they should also be forbidden for their police agents, for the latter are only allowed the same rights of self-defense as ordinary citizens. I can shoot somebody who is attacking my girlfriend just as a state agent can.
(2) In Heller (see link in my post above), the Supreme Court has tried to answer your question in light of the Constitution. Ignoring the right to resist tyranny (alas), they have ruled that ordinary individuals have the right to guns that are in general use–in which case, of course, “high capacity” magazines and semi-auto rifles are protected by the Second Amendment.
(3) It seems pretty clear to me that, on any consistent theory of individual liberty, ordinary individuals must have the right to own “grenades, tanks, and rocket launchers” if the government does. In fact, even ordinary police agencies own such things. The issue is more complicated with armaments that are aimed at mass killings and can be easily deployed by mistake such as nuclear weapons: in this case, they should probably be forbidden to all.
(4) In case of doubt, fall back on the presumption of liberty. See de Jasay on this. Two of my Regulation articles are relevant (and short): “The Valium of the People” and “A Conservative Anarchist: Anthony de Jasay, 1925-2019?“.
(5) Protection against tyranny may require “private force” capable of resisting the hordes of government (see de Jasay again: https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2018/Lemieuxstate.html). But not necessarily: private force may be sufficient just by increasing the cost of tyranny for the rulers.
Thaomas
Sep 2 2019 at 11:25am
It’s hard to see what the purpose of the metaphysical sojourn was. It is well accepted that people in ordinary circumstances should be able to own guns to protect themselves.
This should not, however, mean that some kinds of guns or accessories more suitable for mass murder than individual protection ought not be restricted, that ownership should not be registered and that possession by some people restricted in order to reduce the numbers of victims of gun violence.
Pierre Lemieux
Sep 2 2019 at 12:36pm
Thaomas: What better time for a “metaphysical sojourn” than Labor Day weekend? Yet, “metaphysical” should be replaced by “philosophical.”
More substantially, your comment is very relevant, but mistaken. You write:
This is not correct. This statement is rejected in virtually all countries (and in all civilized countries) except America. My short article on the Canadian experience linked in my post above should start persuading you on that. Not to mention that a substantial proportion of the American electorate would (unfortunately) reject this “well accepted” statement.
Rebes
Sep 2 2019 at 12:16pm
Pierre, all the legitimate purposes you list can be accomplished with handguns. Neither these purposes nor the Second Amendment legitimize the ownership of mass killing devices.
Pierre Lemieux
Sep 2 2019 at 12:45pm
Rebes: Many legitimate purposes I list can indeed “be accomplished with handguns.” But not all. Hunting and fighting mobs can only be efficient with long guns. An example was the resistance of Korean Americans during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Wikipedia writes (not that this is the ultimate source, but the events I am referring to were documented everywhere):
And the Supreme Court does not agree with your second point: see #2 in my reply to ECharles.
Jake Delbert
Sep 2 2019 at 12:25pm
George Carlin would like a word with you. In all seriousness, though, this article puts me in mind of Bastiat’s seen and unseen, as so many things do. The incentive effects of widespread gun ownership are as interesting as they are difficult to estimate (for me, at least).
And what losses to life, liberty, property, etc. are permitted by the prohibition? I don’t know enough to say, but this seems like the best counterpoint to the utilitarian calculus of Death(guns) > Death(no guns). Bastiat argues that the benefits of taxes taken are seen, but what is not seen is the benefit to the people of keeping or spending their own money. Are guns similar? One could argue that the benefits of gun ownership that are seen, and those of (further) prohibition are not. But I think what puts this case in parallel with the former is that the benefits of gun ownership are much more distributed and difficult to quantify, whereas prohibition provides an immediate solution to very visible gun violence, while perhaps opening the door to greater, albeit slower evils to come.
Michael Pettengill
Sep 2 2019 at 1:54pm
The shooting in Texas was in self defense. A cop threatened a person with military weapons, and thus he exercised his second amendment right to self defense by shooting, but not killing the cop who stopped him.
Then the government police started a war with him, and he was forced to defend himself as he tried to maintain his freedom.
The government police used innocent bystanders as human shields, making them collateral damage as the person under threat continued to defend himself.
In the end, the government police used their guns to kill him, proving how right he was to see them as threats to his life, thus justifying his using his second amendment right to defend himself.
Contrary to the NRA claim, a good guy with a gun can’t stop bad guys with guns because the government has great power to wage war on individuals.
In war, guns are intended to kill, or destroy to the point of death to burden the enemy with wounded consuming resources.
Pierre Lemieux
Sep 2 2019 at 3:20pm
Innocent bystanders were NOT innocent shields. They were victims of unprovoked aggression.
ECharles
Sep 2 2019 at 2:34pm
I agree the consistent answer if based on rights is that government should have no special privileges. I assume you don’t believe citizens or government should be able to have nukes since they kill indiscriminately for the most part? I believe Rothbard made this argument.
I think you are right.
Agree (see point 1).
Agree
Agree
Appreciate your consistency on this matter. Many who favor high capacity guns that can kill many easily rationalize why citizens shouldn’t own grenades, tanks, etc.
Phil H
Sep 2 2019 at 9:38pm
This is a strong argument; however, I think it opens up some counterarguments.
Looking at actual use is indeed a good way of determining what a tool is “for”. But if we look at actual use of guns, I fear (not actually knowing the statistics that well) that we might find one of their primary uses is for injuring and killing people by accident. That would, I think, cast significant doubt on their legitimacy as a thing that should be in broad circulation. Just as DDT wasn’t made to destroy ecoystems, but does; and arsenic was only supposed to be a pretty wallpaper, but killed people; if guns have many legitimate purposes but also have the side effect of lots of unintended death, then they are a reasonable target of regulation.
I also think you’re being a bit selective with your definition. Pace the dictionary, a gun is more specific than just anything that throws projectiles. A gun is not a catapult, or a pitching machine. I think a better definition would be a device for throwing projectiles with sufficient speed/force to hurt/pierce the skin of a target. While looking at use is definitely a good way to analyse, looking at purpose and features is also relevant, and the hurting/injuring/killing an enemy thing is definitely part of how guns are designed.
The 2nd Amendment argument is also a strong one – the U.S. constitution is a fabulous document that deserves an awful lot of respect – but the claim that freedom from tyranny can *only* be preserved with an armed population is clearly false, at least over certain timeframes, because other countries have managed to maintain freedom.
David S
Sep 3 2019 at 4:33pm
But if we look at actual use of guns, I fear (not actually knowing the statistics that well) that we might find one of their primary uses is for injuring and killing people by accident.
I’m afraid this statement is patently ridiculous. There are almost 400 million guns in the US, with about a third of the US population having access to a gun according to a quick internet search. Another quick search shows 1.4 million deaths between 1968 and 2011. You would have to posit that only one in 300 guns is used every 50 years in order to support that conclusion.
My estimates (with basis in fact): The number one use of guns is practicing the art of aiming one at a gun range (a market with $2B revenue). The second is as a defensive deterrent (about 25% of the US population carry loaded guns at least monthly). The third is hunting/killing nuisance animals (about 5% of the US population hunts).
Actually firing a gun at a human, accidental or not, is so far down the list it is irrelevant (about 40,000 per year, 2/3rds are suicide, 1/3rd is murder, and 3% other, which would include accidental discharge). Injuries rather than fatalities appear to be roughly twice that rate. So the maximum rate that could be an accidental discharge of a firearm resulting in injury or death is about 4,000 per year.
If you see someone with a gun, they are no more likely to be a criminal than the general population. Guns are not more accidentally dangerous than swimming pools (roughly 4,000 deaths per year, presumably many more injuries).
Phil H
Sep 5 2019 at 2:16am
Thanks, David.
Your statistics are a bit contradictory. You say: “1.4 million deaths between 1968 and 2011” – that’s 30,000+ deaths per year. You then say: “Guns are not more accidentally dangerous than swimming pools (roughly 4,000 deaths per year…” So there’s a bit of confusion in the numbers there, but I know good numbers are hard to come by, that’s not a major problem.
The real disagreement is this: “‘ we might find one of their primary uses is for injuring and killing people by accident.’… patently ridiculous…only one in 300 guns is used every 50 years in order to support that conclusion.”
You’re imagining here that my claim is purely numerical. One gun used one time at a firing range is the statistical equivalent of one gun used one time to kill someone. But that’s just not how things work. When Toyota’s brakes fail and kill people, we don’t discount all those times the brakes didn’t fail, and saved people. When AI cars cause a death, we don’t say: 1 death vs 842,983 successful trips to Walmart, that’s fine! This is simply not how modern society typically deals with technologies that cause deaths. One death is not balanced out by one harmless use. Where possible, we avoid implicitly valuing lives/deaths like this at all; when lives/deaths do have to be valued, courts and other institutions use a variety of means to arrive at suitable balancing figures.
Of course, there are lots of problems with the calculuses that courts do use when they are determining what sort of value a life had, or what sort of sanctions are reasonable to prevent lives being taken. But I think it’s worth taking those real-world approaches seriously.
If you don’t like my phrasing “primary uses” then I’ll happily change it: “we might find one of their most salient uses is for injuring and killing people by accident”
mbka
Sep 2 2019 at 10:33pm
This principled argumentation for individual liberty in owning guns sounds fine in isolation and on paper, but other principles such as that government should have the monopoly on violence (for good reason: not just to prevent crime, but mostly to prevent civil wars), stand against it
But in addition, the older I get, the less I am convinced by arguments simply from first principles alone. The whole thing also has to work out in practice.
So look at societies with a lot of gun ownership vs. the ones with less or no gun ownership. The ones with more gun ownership just end up with poorer outcomes w.r.t. violence than comparable countries – generally. So when I read this post, my reaction is simply this. I live in Singapore, where gun ownership is prohibited with extreme penalties. It feels ridiculously safer than the U.S. , it’s not even close. Even though I have “no right to defend myself using a gun”, in your parlance, very importantly, I don’t feel like I need one. In the U.S. you constantly feel like you need one. And it’s still much less safe than here. When I visited my friend in the U.S. recently, I couldn’t walk a block because, I was told, they’d shoot me dead there, happens all the time. Even though the neighborhood looked just fine to the untrained eye. What’s so great about this kind of society? Why would anyone want this?
I don’t buy the liberty argument about guns. This is about feeling powerful by owning and shooting a gun. I understand the sentiment and I am not arguing that this is somewhat immoral or such. But let’s be honest. Guns may rarely be used for killing of humans, but they are used even more rarely for actual self defense. Mostly, they make the owner feel good, and powerful, and to some extent, they are used for sports. They’re fascinating technical marvels, like cameras (I strongly suspect that camera lovers and gun lovers are from the same subpopulation). But, they contribute zilch to your actual safety.
David S
Sep 3 2019 at 4:50pm
<i>Guns may rarely be used for killing of humans, but they are used even more rarely for actual self defense. </i>
I have been present where gun was used for self defense twice. In one case, no shots were fired, and the other case a single shot was fired. In neither case where there any injuries, and in neither case was anything reported to anyone. I have never been present when a gun was used to kill a human. I know many people like me, and my experience seems to match the statistics in what studies there are, so I believe your assertion is incorrect.
I think the biggest disconnect here is between high population density and low population density. I have a farm, where the nearest help is an hour away. There are wild animals that attack people here. I need a gun to defend myself from animals quite often, and cannot rely on the state to apply violence in my defense.
<i>When I visited my friend in the U.S. recently, I couldn’t walk a block because, I was told, they’d shoot me dead there, happens all the time. </i>
I’ve also live in downtown Chicago. In Chicago, you can rely on the police to defend you. They are typically less than 60 seconds away from where I lived, if they weren’t already present. If you visited an area where you were likely to get shot by walking down the street, I’d suggest not going to that area.
(Chicago has dangerous areas, but in my time there what really happened if you accidentally walked into one is that a local would see you and “rescue” you. A friend of mine’s car broke down in such a neighborhood, and she was told “you can’t be here, it isn’t safe” and then was escorted by the stranger out to safety. This kind of thing happened several times to different friends over the years I was there.)
mbka
Sep 3 2019 at 8:59pm
David,
good point and agreed on people in rural areas with wild animals. There are places where guns make sense. That said, this represents a tiny fraction of the population and as far as I can see, the defenders of gun rights usually come from the suburbs and not from farms. Similarly I’d assume on the farm you carry a long rifle and not a 17 shot Glock or the like, the kind of gun mythologized in the self defense line of arguing.
To the last point, sadly. My friend lives in Norfolk, VA and last time he called 911 for multiple gunshots fired in the neighborhood over an extended period of time, it took him 30 min to get an operator to respond. He was then told to calm down because gunshots happen all the time there and as long as he didn’t see bodies on the street he should just shove it.
The major problem I have with with “freedom of gun ownership for self defense” is this. Once the freedom of owning a gun becomes a necessity, is it still a freedom? Or more like a requirement? In other words, either 1. society is so violent and police so unreliable that you really need guns, or 2. it isn’t, and you don’t. 1. is a problem of society, individual gun ownership is a poor band-aid. 2. is a society with no guns needed. Oh, another problem with the self defense thing is that most criminals tend to attack you unawares, this is why successful self defense is so rare – though of course sometimes it works. My self defense stories from my friends all involve being caught by surprise and having no chance to react (including one story by a very experienced rifle man who had guns in the house). I much prefer living in a society that’s less less violent overall, rather than celebrating violence (which guns symbolize). I have changed in this as I got older. I used to be more absolutist in my views of the personal freedoms one should have. But I believe now that widespread gun ownership just has too many externalities.
My VA friend still doesn’t own a gun, but he’s considering it. What else can you do. I sympathize.
David S
Sep 4 2019 at 2:19am
Well, rural population is 20% of the US population, so not really tiny. Unfortunately cities have developed a bad reputation for forcing laws on rural folk that may make sense inside cities, but don’t away make any sense away from them.
mbka
Sep 4 2019 at 2:43am
A lot of laws should be local, although you could make good general laws that make appropriate provisions for special situations such as living on a farm.
The 20% rural number seems high and depends on the definition of “rural”. The farm population working in the US is really tiny: 1.3% of US jobs if you believe the USDA, and that’s already including everyone that works on a farm even if they don’t live there. That’s what I had in mind since you talked about farms.And the rural areas also pay a price for their higher gun ownership in terms of higher gun death rates (often accidents and to a great extent, suicide).
Comments are closed.