Bill is a brilliant person and his writings are often witty and always thought provoking.Bill Vallicella:
"Here is a stab at an argument for natural gun rights.
(1) Every human person possesses a right to life.
(2) If a human person has a right to life, then he has a right to defend his life against those who would seek to violate it.
(3) If a human person has a right to defend his life, then he has a right to an effective means of defending his life.
(4) A handgun is an effective means of defending one's life, and indeed, in some circumstances, the only effective means. Therefore,
(5) human persons have a right to possess handguns.
It is easy to see that the conclusion follows from the premises. But are the premises true?
Surely (1) is uncontroversial. Note that this argument does not assume that every human being is a human person. Saddam Hussein is a human being, but it is arguable that by the commission of his crimes he forfeited his personhood, and with it his right to life. Some will hold that human fetuses are not persons, and so have no right to life. I believe they are wrong, but the above argument does not rest on the assumption that they are.
To see that (2) is true, consider what happens if you negate it. The negation of (2) is: (~2) Human persons have a right to life, but they do not have the right to defend their lives. The absurdity of this is self-evident. How can I have a right to life if it is morally impermissible for me to defend my life?
My having a right to life does not entail any moral obligation on my part to defend my life, but it surely entails the moral permissibility of self-defense. For if I have a right to life, then others have an obligation not to harm me. This obligation of theirs entitles me to meet a deadly threat with force sufficient to thwart the attack, up to and including killing the assailant.
We appear to be at moral rock-bottom here. I say (2) is self-evident. Reject it, and there is probably no point in further discussion.
The negation of (3) also strikes me as absurd: You have a right to defend yourself, but no right to the possession of any effective means of so doing? To will the end is to will the means. So, to will one's defense is to will the means to one's defense. Therefore, if it is morally permissible to will one's defense, then it is morally permissible to will the means to one's defense. I grant that qualifications may be needed. Arguably, felons ought not have the right to purchase firearms. A felon either forfeits his right to self-defense, or has that right overridden by the community's right to be safe from his predation.
(4) is obviously true pending some obvious qualifications that I left out for the sake of brevity, the soul of wit. A handgun is an effective means of self defense, but not in all circumstances, only if the defender is properly trained in the use of firearms, etc.
The conclusion follows from the premises, and the premises are defensible. So I say the individual qua individual (as opposed to the individual qua member of some collective such as a police force or military unit) has an individual right to posses firearms for the purpose of defending his own life. The existence of such an individual right does not entail that it is unlimited. Thus if I have a right to firepower sufficient to my self-defense, it does not follow that I have a right to firepower sufficent to lay waste to a city. One non sequitur to avoid is this: There is no unlimited individual right to keep and bear arms; ergo, the right to keep and bear arms is a collective right.
Arguments like the foregoing make appeal to people's reason. Like all my arguments, it is directed to open-minded, reasonable people who are doing their level best to form correct opinions about matters of moment. You decide whether I have been employing right reason. But if you wish to criticize, just be sure that you engage what I have actually written and not something you have excogitated on the occasion of skimming my post.".
More of William Vallicella's writing may be found at http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/
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