Saturday 12 November 2011

On Firearms Ownership

I was recently involved in a slightly rough-and-tumble firearms debate here, chiefly with the British blogger FOARP* (the "scarlet conservative"). Since my opponents seem to have "bowed out" of that debate in their own graceless fashion, I thought I'd give a brief precis of why I am right and the firearms prohibition advocates are wrong:

The right to own firearms is no different from the right to own any other type of property.

Against this, firearms prohibition advocates will argue that private firearms ownership poses a significant exernality risk to others in society, and that therefore, government should strictly prohibit the private ownership of firearms. Notice that this counter-argument rests on two claims, the first of which is a factual claim and the second one is a contingent ethical imperative. I will first refute the factual claim, and then I will refute the imperative attached to it.

The Facts

The factual claim, that private firearms ownership poses a significant exernality risk to others, may be made on the back of three seperate sub-claims:
  • 1) Privately owned guns are more likely to be used in committing violent crimes than they are in self-defense.
This claim requires the abstraction of aggregate statistics from context; it ignores the fact that many gun-owners live in areas with relatively low crime (whether that low crime is consequent to the private ownership of firearms is another question) so of course these gun-owners are less likely to use their guns in self-defence than say, someone living in places where the crime rate is relatively high.
  • 2) Homicides tend to be committed by people known personally to the victim, such as friends, family or spouses.
This sub-claim is used to argue that the introduction of private firearms ownership would likely increase the homicide rate, since firearms make it physically easier to kill. This may or may not be true, since it depends on other things, particularly the sort of people who acquire guns; good people don't use firearms in situations other than self-defence or training, bad people use them to commit crimes - either of passion or of acquisition. Yet preventing bad people from acquiring firearms is not going to prevent them from committing homicides.
  • 3) Homicides involving the use of firearms are as likely to be committed by any demographic subset of the population and that there is thus no "ideal" gun-owning subset of the population.
This claim is simply not true (which means it is either made in error, or it is a lie). The proportion of the U.S. population estimated as owning firearms is somewhere between 40% and 50%, yet the proportion of murder/manslaughter offenders using firearms is somewhere around 1% of the population. Thus most people who own firearms in the U.S. do not use them to commit murder/manslaughter. QED.

The Imperative


The imperative claimed by firearms prohibition advocates is that since (or so they wrongly suppose) private firearms ownership poses significant externality-risks to other people, government must therefore strictly prohibit or otherwise strictly control the private ownership of firearms.

The principle at work in this claim is unqualified majoritarianism: if a majority deems private firearms ownership "too" dangerous, then the government should prohibit it. The underlying premise is crude, amoral utilitarianism, i.e. that government should act for the "greater good"** on no other definition than subjective majoritarian preference. Yet this can cut both ways; if a majority regard private firearms ownership as fine, then it "ought" to be legalized. Thus, this isn't even an ethical argument against private firearms ownership per se, but rather an argument for the authority of government, and nothing more.

As an argument for the authority of government, however, it is simply amoral, majoritarian tyranny: the government ought to do whatever the majoritarian mob says it ought to do (and perhaps after they have been whipped into a fervour by some demagogue). It does not even include the usual caveats as to the rights of individuals (or, in bullshit Lefty speak "minority groups").

So far as I am aware, firearms prohibition advocates have no other specifically ethical argument for State prohibition of private firearms ownership; correct me if I am wrong.

***

All that being said however, I can certainly think of a subtler, more persuasive argument for firearms prohibition - which is that responsible and peaceful firearms ownership can only occur in places with the necessary socio-cultural prerequisites. These prerequisites would include widespread respect for the rights of the individual, including the right of private property, and the principles of free exchange, free speech and free association. Where these socio-cultural necessities are lacking or suspect, it is easier to doubt the consequentialist benefits for society of private firearms ownership. This argument is especially salient to me here in Taiwan since the broader culture elevates the importance of "face" to what I take to be ridiculous extremes - I can quite easily imagine a couple of locals shooting each other over competing claims to a girl or some other, far more trivial, loss-of-face-issue (e.g. "He called me a 白痴!").

There are two things to say about this. The first is that it is not of itself a trump argument since it is still based on the collectivist "greater good" premise which would still deny to individuals the right of purchasing the most effective means to defend themselves. As an objection however, it still leaves me hungry. The second is more interesting - it is the question of whether we can identify what other actions ought to be taken in conjunction with the legalization of private firearms ownership in order to reduce the risk of any possible increase in violent crime. The low-hanging answers here are obviously things like training, ethics and licensing, but I doubt these are sufficient to overturn many decades of deeply entrenched cultural habit. A training program with a very strict ethical aspect may go some way to moderating the influence of culture, but I'm not sure this is something I'd want to bet on. Reaching somewhat higher up there are the libertarian arguments about diminishing or indeed eliminating the influence of government so as to allow a direct, market-mediated relationship between people and the local police departments that purport to serve them. By allowing the market to restructure the incentives under which police operate - focusing more on violent crime and less on minor traffic violations for instance - it may be possible to more forcefully augment the moderating effect that strict training and licensing would have on the cultural difficulties in resolving personal conflicts without resort to violence.

*I have a comment at his place on this post, which is either awaiting moderation, or which he has rejected. "Scarlet conservative", is, I think, an apt description of him.

**By "the greater good" I mean unqualified majoritarian preference, which is distinct from "the common good" and also "public goods". A "common good" is a good in which it is supposed that everybody in society places some value; typical examples include innoculation against contagious diseases and defence against invasion by foreign armies. A "public good" is one which is made available to everybody in society on a non-excludable basis; radio programs are a standard example since they can be picked up by anybody with a radio receiver. The use of the "common good" and "public good" concepts is common among free-market advocates and libertarians since they are a significant theoretical issue. The use of "greater good" arguments is common in both the Statist wings of the Left and the Right in order to justify social engineering projects such as State education, or the State prohibition of prostitution and so forth.

8 comments:

  1. I agree with you on premise if not on a few of your specifics. Without researching (this is a caveat) I would think much less than 40% of Americans own guns. I have seen stats that there is a gun for every man woman and child in the US but also that if you own a gun you most likely own 5 or more. Therefore there is a concentration of guns in the hands of a few (lets hope they know what they are doing). I also agree with the unequal distribution of these guns in the population (more in the country and with farmers than with city folk and gang-bangers). A common statement "if you make guns criminal, only criminals will have guns" while I agree with the letter the spirit is flawed. The 2nd Amendment protects gun ownership for a well trained militia. While I own a gun and my family owns several none of us are registered militia members so we have no constitutional protection for our arms. My main objection is the statement about the correct socio-cultural situation to allow gun ownership. In an ideal socio-cultural setting we simply wouldn't steal, rape, kill and would have no need to shoot. I am far to cynical of human nature for this to work with me so I prefer to have my gun, know how to shoot, have those in my house aware of the guns and what they are/do (as my sister and I were made very aware as children). How many people a year die in car accidents in Taiwan? In India it is one fatality every 15 seconds. I am only saying as much so we should have a conversation about banning cars. What about factory accidents? building collapses in earthquakes? If we are going to ban every dangerous thing we find around us or at least let the government tell us what is ok and not we should start worring about the deadliest things we leave hanging around HUMANS!

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  2. "I have seen stats that there is a gun for every man woman and child in the US but also that if you own a gun you most likely own 5 or more. Therefore there is a concentration of guns in the hands of a few..."

    It's true that gun-owners tend to own more than one type of firearm (naturally: different firearms are suited to different uses) and so there is a degree of concentration.

    The difficulty with estimating the size of the gun-owning segment of the population is that the only way to get data is to ask people, as in a census. E.g. see this 2004 survey here: 38% of households and 26% of individuals.

    Yet people are naturally (and I think correctly) suspicious of census questions on firearms, which will often mean a reluctance to answer the questions and so this will depress the statistics. The other thing is that there might be quite a few city-type small-d democrats who nevertheless own a handgun but don't want to let on about it. So it's hard to know what the real number is, but if you spend some time researching it, I think you'll find the 40%-50% estimate is a common one.

    Actually I should make a correction: that estimate is not 40%-50% of the population, it is 40%-50% of households. Still, assuming the number of gun owners is 80 million that's still almost 30% of a 300 million population. And then we have to take some account of the natural reluctance many people will have about telling some government or academic agency whether they own firearms or not, so the real figure is likely substantially higher than 30%.

    So consider that >30% figure of U.S. gun-owners with the number of murders in 2010 at 14,748. It doesn't even compare! That murder number is far less than even 1% of the population - and that is without accounting for those murders committed with firearms, and of those, accounting then for murders committed with illegally obtained firearms.

    "My main objection is the statement about the correct socio-cultural situation to allow gun ownership. In an ideal socio-cultural setting we simply wouldn't steal, rape, kill and would have no need to shoot."

    My handling of the socio-cultural prerequisites for responsible firearms ownership was a bit more subtle than that; I wasn't demanding paradise, but simply suggesting that sensible precautions ought to be taken in the sale of firearms in conjunction with market-based reforms to more adequately tackle violent crime.

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  3. One other thing is the use of guns in crime. In petty crimes this is now (in the US) a recognized screw-up. Gun possession during the committing of a crime adds a serious felony. Many now use other means of defense. Some drug dealers use dogs trained to attack (not a crime) and will even file down the teeth to sharpen them of cap them with metal to make them more effective. Unless the threat of guns is there on the other side most prefer not to carry now. So legal measures can be used to curtail or curb the use of guns in crime that need not be violent without removing an honest citizens right to protect his/her life and property.

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  4. As I stated in the beginning I agree in Spirit with the ideas you espouse. The correction to households makes me much more comfortable in the talk and while i agree with the spirit of the socio-cultural issue I believe you are setting up a tar-baby where anyone who touches is stuck and will be unable to extricate themselves.

    P.S. The 2nd post was written right after the first but i forgot to write in the "secret code" to post so only did so after I returned from work and before I read your reply.

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  5. "So legal measures can be used to curtail or curb the use of guns in crime that need not be violent without removing an honest citizens right to protect his/her life and property."

    Assuming you mean curb the use of guns in non-violent crime (syntax: it's not clear whether your use of "that" refers to legal measures or crime), then yes. A gun is a means to an end, so when the use of guns to achieve an end carries too high a cost, people will switch to alternative means such as attack dogs. Not that I think that is particularly desirable either, mind you - only that it may be less likely to result in death than the use of a gun.

    "I believe you are setting up a tar-baby where anyone who touches is stuck and will be unable to extricate themselves."

    Am I? Maybe I am missing something, but it's not clear to me that I am, since as I said in my post above, I think the right to own firearms is no different to the right to own any other kind of property and does not depend on consequences. All I'm saying is that I'd be more comfortable with firearm legalization here in Taiwan if other reforms, both conventional and radical, were taken in concert with that.

    "The 2nd post was written right after the first but i forgot to write in the "secret code" to post so only did so after I returned from work and before I read your reply."

    Oh. Well, whatever.

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  6. Thoughts on the Swiss model? (where the State is actively involved in supplying (a portion of) the population with firearms, and where firearm ownership is tightly regulated overall)

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  7. "Thoughts on the Swiss model?"

    Well the 226 is used by all the world's top special forces!

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  8. Seriously, the Swiss way of doing things is... Swiss. I'm not sure it can or should be copied by anyone else.

    In Taiwan, the idea of the State supplying citizens with firearms might be more susceptible to abuse and subtle forms of political discrimination, so no I don't think it'd be good here. Privatized supply, sale and regulation would be the best way to try to get to an ideal situation of good people being able to own guns if they want to, and bad people finding it difficult to get them.

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