Why the right to bear arms matters
A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed—the Constitution of the United States, Amendment II.
Our Founders understood that those who hold political power will almost always strive to reduce the freedom of those they rule and that many of the ruled will always be tempted to trade their liberty for promises of security. The U.S. Constitution, including the Second Amendment, was designed to frustrate those ambitions.
A closer look at the principles summarized in the Declaration of Independence will help to clarify the philosophical basis of both our right to keep and bear arms and our corresponding duty to defend it:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
So, why do elites—liberals and conservatives alike, but most progressives and Democrats—want to infringe these rights? The progressive left is united in promoting restrictions on civilian access to firearms.
Our right to free speech, to assemble, for a free press and freedom of religion found in the First Amendment are completely dependent on the Second Amendment. Weakening the Second Amendment concurrently weakens the first. Without the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms and form militias, our First Amendment rights are at risk of being overrun by an ever-expanding government under the guise of keeping us all safe.
A gun-free America does not guarantee a less violent America. However, it does ensure a less free one, and therefore, a less safe one.
Monsters can only be defeated by (civilized) monsters
“A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has it under voluntary control—a virtuous man”—Jordan Peterson.
We have all heard that “the meek shall inherit the earth”, but why?
Well, “the meek” does not mean the tame and submissive; it means power under control. This is an important distinction. The meek shall prevail (inherit the earth) because, though slow to anger, they will defend themselves. Monsters and dangerous psychopaths always lurk in the shadows (think Marxists and anarchists) and we must keep them there. To do that we need to develop the inner psychopath so that to see one is to know one. We must have the potential to be equally dangerous—armed civilized monsters—even as we are determined to keep our weapons sheathed.
Many people identify gun ownership with racism, the far right, or lunatics, as ridiculous as this might sound. The liberal approach to gun control has a superficial logic: take away guns and you reduce gun-crime. Nice try, but cherry-picking. Mass shootings are certainly horrific, but they are a small part of overall shooting deaths. Two-thirds of all gun deaths in the United States are suicides—and many of those are due to lack of access to healthcare, housing, education, and well-paid jobs. Because high unemployment is related to higher crime and gun-related deaths, policies that reduce unemployment reduce gun violence.
Liberals with good intentions are neither good nor wise. Good intentions can lead to bad consequences. You cannot defeat monsters without arms—of either sort—and you cannot stop an assailant or a violent mob with good intentions.
The cognitive battle we must win
It occurs to me that “intellect” and the capability to produce logical arguments are also powerful weapons—the pen being mightier than the sword—which is all-well-and-good if your opponent has only a fountain pen. If he conceals a weapon, then he or she has a powerful advantage.
I think of this problem in the context of the cultural war that is tearing our great country apart. It’s an ideological war: the left peddles a false and dangerous belief. It’s false because handcuffing the law-abiding does not impress the non-law-abiding. Banning or restricting guns is simply part of an agenda—to control the militia (i.e., the people) that our founders prized above all citizens. It’s an end game (totalitarian) solution that even the liberals would not support if they could see where that path leads.
In the words of Thomas Sowell, an American economist and social theorist, “If we, through some miracle, get through this—this in the context of Biden’s and the Democrat’s socialist agenda—we must take the time to learn the lesson of what happens when you vote based on rhetoric and symbolism instead of using your mind. It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.”
But life’s busy tedium does not grant us time to think through complex (i.e., fiscal/regulatory) problems. Hence, we use mental shortcuts. In psychology, they are known as heuristics, a reasoning process that is sufficient for reaching an immediate short-term goal. Such heuristics allow us to make judgments quickly. Unfortunately, heuristics tend to simplify issues and lead to poor decisions. There are good reasons to follow the well-trodden path through the woods instead of taking a shortcut because shortcuts have risks.
But to return to the original argument that we must restrict gun ownership. Why? Most guns are never involved in a crime or even in self-defense. We don’t ban cars because some cars are involved in accidents. On balance, traveling by car is a personal and social good, so why isn’t gun ownership? Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, but little gun-related street crime.
In a recent study at Duke University, psychologists tested cognitive shortcuts and found that the brain’s use of heuristics often leads to irrational decision-making. Banning or restricting guns is a case study in the failure of heuristics.
The meek are not weak if they can defend themselves
Infringing or eliminating the right to bear arms is one way to weaken a republic founded on the principle that all people are created equal. Whatever our age, culture, gender, or ethnicity, we share the same fundamental rights to liberty, free speech, freedom of belief, due process of law, and freedom of assembly. The constitutional right to bear arms is also a shared right—a right worth preserving if we value the American way of life.
Too many Americans, and not just those on the left, misunderstand the liberal principles on which the right to keep and bear arms rests. Most of the credit for preserving the liberty to bear arms belongs to the resistance of ordinary people who have remained defiant in the face of elites who fear and distrust an armed citizenry.
The meek are not weak when they can defend themselves—they are an army, a well-regulated militia that our Founders, in their wisdom, saw as the last bastion of freedom.
Published on February 5, 2021