Written May 5th, 2020
All humans, merely by being human, posses certain rights. These are called natural rights, so-called because they are ours simply by nature of our humanity. Of course, in dealings among men, there are disputes. It might be asked, in these cases, whose rights supersede whose? The answer of course is that there is no such thing as the supersession of one man's rights over another's. The rights of one extend only as far as they can go without encroaching on the rights of another. As an example, we have the freedom of speech... but not all speech is free speech. Directly threatening another person is considered a call to violence, and should be considered as such. Just as one man has a right to speak freely, another has a right to his life. His right to life extends beyond his right to merely be alive, it also ensures that he not have his life be placed unduly in jeopardy. This is beginning to be what I am driving at: The rights of all men extend as far as they possibly can, without infringing on the rights of others.
This is surely the way things ought to be, because anything less would be an unnecessary restriction on the liberty of others. Now, it should be once again noted that there are legitimate restrictions on liberty. Only behavior which does not damage the rights of another can be considered to be justified. It is no small thing to divorce our fellow men from their liberties, and all of us should take great care in ensuring that such action is truly necessary before it is undertaken. Unfortunately, this is no longer commonplace. Many of us are more than willing to consider taking a scalpel the rights of others if they seem to be problematic for some reason or another.
There is a funny thing about government which seems to have gone largely unnoticed: All government activity is performed at gunpoint. If this seems doubtful, imagine trying to perform any law enforcement with unarmed police. Taxation, speed limits, tariffs, controlled substances, words you can't say on TV... all are enforced at gunpoint. It might be said: "Many laws are not enforced at gunpoint, because the penalty for breaking them is only a fine". This argument and those like it simply fail to consider the consequences of breaking a law far enough into the future. Consider the consequence of failing to pay a fine to the government. Eventually a warrant will be put out for the arrest of the fine-dodger, and if they're ever identified men with guns will come and put them in jail. Surely I don't need to go into all of the many facets of this point to illustrate that all government authority exists only as a threat of force.
The idea that all legislation is enforced at gunpoint is, then, absolutely necessary to understanding government at all. Under what circumstances are we willing to use the threat of overwhelming force to influence the behavior of others? The only answer which can claim to be founded in anything resembling morality is "Only those circumstances in which it is absolutely necessary, where the behavior of one man has damaged the ability of another to live freely". Truly, what else could possibly justify the use of violence? A feeling of insecurity? Surely not, no one could reasonably claim they have a right to feel any particular way. Certainly it is not the case that merely effecting the feelings of another in any way should carry the threat of overwhelming force! Unfortunately, however, it does. There's perhaps no better example of this in practice than the standing infringements on the right to defend oneself.
First, we must establish that self-defense deserves to be considered a natural right. This is a straightforward point to make, because upon any analysis at all it becomes very clear that all people are naturally entitled to defend themselves. What could the alternative possibly be? That in the event of attack the victim should merely lie down and be assaulted? The suggestion itself is completely absurd. Surely if we have the right to live, and our lives as vulnerable to physical harm as they are, we must have a right to defend our lives and the lives of others from credible threats.
If self-defense is a natural right, then any proposed limitation on it must be justified upfront with the exact manner in which a particular exercise of self-defense damages the liberties of others. As we have seen, no other justification could possibly be sufficient to separate a man from his freedom. There are a handful of legitimate restrictions on the right to defend oneself which meet this standard. For instance, self-defense should be proportional. As an example, being shot is not proportional to being shoved. Therefore, it is not justifiable to shoot someone because they shoved first. As another example, the right to defend oneself only exists when the defender has a right to be where they are. That is to say, a home invader cannot justify shooting the home owner in self-defense, even if it was necessary to defend the invader's own life. These examples are well-defined restrictions on the right to defend oneself, and they are defined by the damage they cause to the liberties of others.
All of that having been said, let us finally get to the subject of what is commonly known as "gun control", "gun bans" and the like. I ask any proponent of such legislation: What liberties are being damaged by the mere ownership of one weapon or another? What justification exists for using the threat of overwhelming force to confiscate legitimately-owned private property in any case? What makes the case of firearms any different? What is it about certain firearms that causes them infringe on the liberty of others, in a way that other firearms do not? I can only speak from my perspective, but I have personally never heard an argument for restrictions on firearms which addresses any of these issues at all. As a matter of fact most of the arguments I've heard fail to fundamentally understand firearms in the first place, but this is a discussion for another time.
It is broadly observed that Western civilization has become very polarized. Oddly, in a time of such tremendous peace and prosperity, there seems to be some fault line which puts us apart. From where I'm standing, it appears that this fault line originates from a fundamental disagreement about the nature of human rights. There are those who believe that all mankind should be as free as we can be, free until we prevent others from also being free. These people believe that this expanse of freedom is bestowed unto each of us as our birthright, and that no entity should consider itself so worthy as to infringe on so much as an inch of such divine ground. On the other hand, there are those who do not see humans as free individuals at all. These people are of the polar opposite belief, that humans should be considered as members of a group which supersedes the self. It follows that in such a system self-defense wouldn't be considered necessary at all, or should at least pose no risk to the group. Through this lens, confiscating weapons considered to be "too powerful" by the group is more than sensible, it is a duty.
It is clear that these two perspectives cannot coexist, but you will find upon even cursory analysis that most disagreements in the West are about exactly this Individualism vs. Collectivism battle. Gun control, abortion, hate speech, government surveillance, single-payer healthcare, COVID-19 response, transgender pronouns, free college, business' freedom of association, drug policy, minimum wage... are all in whole or in large part about the intractable bind between Individualism and Collectivism. There can be no compromise, no amicable living-together. Collectivism will insist upon the restriction of the liberties of some for the security of others, but Individualism will gladly die on the hill of liberty. One of the two philosophies must wither away, or our society must divide itself in two. Unfortunately, societies have a way of not dividing peacefully, so let us all work towards the former while we still can.
I leave you with the words of a man wiser than myself:
I regard free speech as a prerequisite to a civilized society, because freedom of speech means that you can have combat with words. That means what it means. It doesn't mean that people can happily and gently exchange opinions. It means that we can engage in combat with words. In the battleground of ideas. And the reason why that's acceptable, and why it's acceptable that people's feelings get hurt during that combat, is that the combat of ideas is far preferable to actual combat.