“First they came for the AK-47s…..”
In the wake of the Connecticut shootings and in light of the hints dropped by Obama at the vigil for the victims, it seems we should be prepared for a debate in the coming weeks and months between those who advocate greater gun control to protect innocent lives and those who make a competing moral claim that such regulations infringe on the more important right to bear arms, which is supposed to be part of a general value of freedom. But that’s bullshit. Human beings with a moral compass who live in any kind of society do not have total freedom. Never have and never will. Total freedom is incompatible with any notion of morality, whether liberal or conservative, and makes collective living impossible.
NYU’s Jonathan Haidt and his co-authors, such as USC’s own Jesse Graham, have tried to catalogue the universe of different moral foundations, different system of morality based on different values. They broadly distinguish between the ethics of autonomy and the ethics of community. The former stresses the value of individuals and society’s obligation to protect them from harm and care for them. The latter stresses the value of the community and individuals’ duties to others. It places the virtues of in-group loyalty and obedience to authority at the top. Survey research shows that liberals embrace the ethics of autonomy while conservatives try to balance the community and autonomy. All moral systems, however, are about restrictions on individual rights to allow societies to function.
What gun advocates are describing is what Ronald Dworkin calls “liberty as license,” the ability to do whatever they want regardless of the consequences. In other words, they want to have total carte blanche to do as they will. Some might call this libertarianism. If all moral foundations involve some obligation to a broader community, then this is a fight between those who are completely self-interested and those who are moral.
As Dworkin points out, free societies are not based on liberty as license but rather equal concern and respect, a belief in the inherent value of the individual. We all have obligations to others to care for them and not harm them. A significant portion of that obligation is to allow others the individual freedom to make choices as they see fit, to allow them to choose their vision of the good life. But this applies only in so far as it is consistent with equal concern and respect. If your vision of the good life is stealing social security checks from old people, the deal is off. That is why we have laws even in a free society, to guarantee equal concern and respect. We get to liberty through equal concern and respect. Freedom is not more important even in free societies. It is important to note, equal concern and respect is not communism. Communism has no respect for the value of the individual.
As you might be able to tell, liberal democracy is based first and foremost on the ethics of autonomy. But even the ethics of community would also led us to restrict the use of guns. There is a threat to society from within and that requires restrictions on our individual liberties to protect the community. Normally conservatives would stress the importance of strong law-and-order policies to keep society free from harm if they were acting morally even as they define it. I am not asking conservatives to become liberals, but rather to act like real conservatives. Because liberal and conservative morality point to the same conclusion on this one. So a significant portion of our political class are essentially sociopaths or enabling them.
I am not saying that if you own a gun and like to shoot it (at animals) that you are in any way a bad person. But I am saying that if you think that society and the government does not have, in these instances, the right to restrict the kind and number of weapons you own to try and stop episodes like this, then that is in fact a morally indefensible position. Gun rights advocates might claim that there is no clear evidence that such restrictions would prevent such tragedies. They might be right. But there is no clear evidence that they don’t, and even if there is the slightest chance that it might work, it is worth the costs it incurs to gun owners. They might also argue that having guns around in all public places deters violence. We need more guns, not less. but the very essence of living in a society is leaving the protection of citizens to the government. That is the social contract we make. We have been watching too many Bruce Willis movies.
I am sure that someone might read this as just another liberal diatribe about gun violence but it really isn’t. If I were trapped under my house following an earthquake, and I might indeed someday be (no cheering, Phil!), I would feel much better about it if my neighbors were conservatives rather than liberals. I think those values of intense community and in-group solidarity create a stronger social glue (at least within the group, maybe not so good for foreign affairs). I think in many ways they are simply better people than liberals like me. But only if they were genuine conservatives, not this fake conservatism wrapping itself in the Constitution and AK-47s.
good point that we don’t really have many conservatives in this country right now. In some ways, the Republican party is a radical liberal party (liberal in the euro sense).
Pushed to extremes these distinctions break down. Left and right become mirror images of one another when pushed too far. There really wasn’t that much difference in terms of practice between Joe and Adolph, apart from the choice of moustache. :)
“Gun rights advocates might claim that there is no clear evidence that such restrictions would prevent such tragedies. They might be right. But there is no clear evidence that they don’t, and even if there is the slightest chance that it might work, it is worth the costs it incurs to gun owners. ”
If you replace “gun” with “speech,” do you still stand by this? Or is this only a diatribe against constitutional rights you dislike?
This opens up some of the key points of discussion:
1. We do, in fact, qualify speech rights all the time, but you’re right that doing so requires (in theory, if not always in practice) close scrutiny. So the question is what would the relevant balancing test be for firearms? What factors should we take into consideration?
2. A lot of this debate rests on a prior question: the status of the “right to bear arms” in both Constitutional and political-theoretic terms. It might be interesting to hash this out a bit.
My own view is that (1) the kinds of restrictions on the table are unlikely to make much difference and hence I’m not sure what the point of them is [I’m not big on 1% doctrines], (2) that the right to bear arms is not, in fact, much of a safeguard against tyranny, and (3) that the traditional understandings of the 2nd amendment prior to recent decisions were just fine. So I think these sorts of restrictions (should) easily pass second-amendment and political-theoretic scrutiny, but I’m not sold on them *regardless.*
“the kinds of restrictions on the table are unlikely to make much difference”
I don’t know much about the details of weapons, the details of gun regulation policy, or the details of the particular weapon used in this horrific shooting (obviously it was the kind of rifle that could fire lots of rounds quickly but beyond that I don’t know the details). So am curious (1) why you think the kinds of restrictions being discussed are unlikely to be effective and (2) what you think would be more effective.
Btw I see in WaPo that Sens. Warner (D-Va.) and Manchin (D-W.Va) are apparently rethinking their positions on guns. This must be seen as a positive development, I think, even if there is no perfect legislative solution on the horizon. The peculiarly shocking character of this act may well have an effect on legislative and public opinion of a kind that previous shootings didn’t.
Joe Scarborough seems to have had a similar reaction. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/joe-scarborough-newtown-shooting_n_2315100.html
Australia placed restrictions on pump and semi-automatic action rifles – the fastest firing things you could get – and saw pretty massive reductions in gun homicides, mass shootings: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/
I’m always a little confused by arguments that seem to give all the rights in the US constitution equal value or importance.
If we expand the perspective to include the experience of states beyond the US, it becomes quite hard to argue that, say, the right to own firearms is as crucial to the functioning of a liberal democracy as, say, the right to free speech is.
The problem I have is that the overall figures for deaths (accidents and murders) suggest that gun control is required, but single instances like this would probably not be affected by any kind of gun control policy; they happen everywhere even in societies with very tight gun controls; the fact the US has more of them might be saying more about your society than guns. Moreover, policy made quickly on the back of tragic incidents such as this is rarely effective or well thought out. That said, I’m in favour of gun controls for ‘my’ society. I’m not sure I have much of a say (or right to a say, in yours).
I feel like you should be able to comment on the norms of ‘another society’ – aren’t we all humans together? – with the epistemic humility appropriate for being an outside observer with a limited perspective. Especially if it is to express concern for the safety of that society’s most vulnerable members.
Oh, I can comment as much as I like, and often do. But I don’t have a right to demand that I’m heard, or that my opinion should carry much weight given that I won’t have to carry the consequences. I’m with you on the common humanity issue, but I’m not sure outsiders looking in and making ‘self-righteous’ pronouncements about how other people ought to live is how I’d want to organise the larger (global) society.
Excellent post Brian.
This is an excellent engagement, but I want to add something to it. There is something else at work – something another social psychologist, Scott Atran, has explored. Gun ownership has become a sort of ‘sacred’ principle for many people (let’s say they’re mostly on the Right). There could be a number of reasons for this. One reason might be the stronger ‘self-help tribalism’ that tends to characterise rural community culture, where the private provision of violence and a deep scepticism of outside authority makes weapon ownership important and therefore more likely to become the subject of moral investment. Another reason might just be that gun ownership has been discursively constructed as a major political fault-line, such that a relatively tertiary constitutional right has become a focus of identity.
I can think of many cosmopolitan ‘liberals’ who show a strong sense of community loyalty, and who would definitely help their neighbours in the case of a disaster. Yet they would never dream of privately providing violence; in their case, community and autonomy both are salient social themes or categories, and yet they interact in a way that’s different from rural conservatives.
At the same time, the self-help logic that underpins the private provision of violence implies its own interaction of autonomy and community.
I guess what I’m really saying is that individual vs group seems to help us understand part of this issue, but we can understand more if we also look at which values are sacred and how they become embodied in institution and action.
I am sure I misunderstood the authors point.
I am certain any person would be amenable to the government’s authority to regulate the sale of weapons. It is the next step the author makes that I misunderstand. Even if one accepts your moral argument, there is no policy description that details how the government would stop instances like this.
For what it is worth, I avoid discussing this topic like the plague. I find the debate always takes away from the horrific event that sparked the discussion in the first place. Furthermore, one always delves into ‘what if’ scenarios, theoretical situation countering theoretical situation.
However, if this site proposes to frame a serious debate about gun control, something the USA is in dire need of, I would like the article to discuss ‘at what cost.’
Would you like the sale of assault rifles to be banned? What is an assault rifle? A weapon that has a pistol grip, large ammo capacity, and discharges small bullets? Say the USA had a ban on the AR-15 style weapon the asshole in Connecticut had. Furthermore, suppose the school had security guards. What would change? He would probably (theory crafting ruins the seriousness of the argument again) use a hand gun. At what cost to the killer? None. He would be able to conceal the smaller weapon and more easily transport his ammo. In terms of effectiveness, the hand gun would produce more damage. It’s a larger bullet, traveling at a slower speed.
If we plan to discuss policy change, the ‘so what’ of the moral diatribe, it is imperative to understand the effectiveness of modern fire arms. Critically, if you believe the government has the right (again, more clarification on this) to stop this from happening, you believe in stopping the sale of fire arms This is ok, as long as you articulate cost from the beginning.
As an unimportant side note- the title of the article perfectly symbolizes why I dislike the architecture of the debate. I understand the casual intellectual nature of the site (its why I come here!) but at some point I expect the poster to show more seriousness and maturity. If it simply went over my head, which is all too possible, I sincerely apologize for bringing the point up.
There is no ‘cost’ to banning civilians from having access to military-style assault weapons; there is only societal benefit, as far as I can tell. (And I find your claim that a handgun would have been more harmful and lethal than a semiautomatic rifle to be very hard to believe.)
A .223 is smaller than a 9mm and much smaller than a .45. Furthermore a .223 is a hyper sonic round that wouldn’t displace as much energy into such a small target. The difference in effectiveness would be that the shooter would have to reload once with a handgun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CartridgeComparison.jpg
The .22 long rifle is on the far right. Please note the difference between a .223 and .22
I fully understand that not everyone knows about firearms and their lethality but the displacement of energy is, fairly, simple.
Of course there is a cost to banning civilians to having access to weapons they find interesting. My post truly just wants to know what the author proposes as a relevant balance test for firearms!
I agree with the post. I would suggest however that one probably could, if so inclined, get to the same conclusion using the language of rights or freedom or liberty. In other words, when a society puts certain restrictions on “liberty as license,” it may thereby also enhance liberty or freedom, in this case individuals’ freedom to pursue their lives with some reasonable level of expectation about their safety. I’m fine with Dworkin, but for those who want older authority I think in this instance one could go back to the “unalienable Rights” that “Governments are instituted among Men [sic]” to secure, the first of which is life. All other rights (including any “right to bear arms”) are worthless without that.