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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 Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
While the Second Amendment, self-defense, and gun control laws are common subjects for consideration in libertarian publications, they are and have been virtually invisible in books and magazines devoted to an explicitly Objectivist viewpoint. The question is: Why have Objectivist writers neglected this area of scholarship? Indeed, should they devote more energy to exploring the impact of firearms and the government's attempts to restrict them?
Ayn Rand devoted little attention to this topic. She felt that if the philosophy and ideas underlying the right to keep and bear arms ever fell into such ill repute that firearm confiscation loomed as a real danger, we were already lost. (The source for this has been lost.)
Unfortunately, we may now find ourselves far closer to that stark possibility than Rand might ever have imagined.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. Thomas Jefferson.
Rand wrote the bulk of her non-fiction essays in the Sixties and early Seventies, before gun control became such a national issue. Most of the gun control laws of the Nineteenth Century arose from local desires to prevent Blacks and immigrants from gaining easy access to handguns. Racists readily recognized that individuals able to defend themselves effectively would be harder to subjugate and intimidate.
In the wake of Prohibition and the popular image of Tommy Guns (fully automatic weapons) as the choice of that era's gangsters, the National Firearms Act was passed in 1934. This law limited access to machine guns to those possessing the proper federal permits. Since few individuals sought to own such firearms, most people took little note of the law as a threat to their Second Amendment rights.
The first major piece of national legislation in recent times -- the Gun Control Act of 1968 -- occurred in the wake of the political assassinations during the Sixties. Some scholars also argue that this bill was rooted in racism and fear of the Black Panthers, who openly called for Blacks to arm themselves in defense against whites. Among other provisions, this act prohibited the mail order sale of guns.
At that time, federal gun control mimicked the proverbial camel with its nose under the tent. The pro-gun forces had been caught napping. Ever since, however, a running political battle has raged. One one side are those seeking to ban all handguns, rifles, and shotguns possessed by private citizens. Opposing them are those who realize that the threat involved in such promised confiscation is not the loss of sport hunting. The end result will be a shredding of our right to self-defense and a burgeoning tyranny that eventually will eviscerate not only the Second Amendment but the entire Constitution itself.
The Brady Law and the 1994 Crime Bill prohibited the sale of certain types of rifles -- erroneously termed "assault weapons" (a true assault weapon is full automatic) -- based on a physical resemblance to certain military weapons. They also banned production of clips holding more than ten rounds for both rifles and handguns and mandated a waiting period for purchase of handguns.
Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own self defense? Patrick Henry.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled the Brady Bill unconstitutional, but a national "instant check" has been implemented in its stead...an "instant check" which may take days to complete...if the computers are not down. Many gun activists see this instant check system as an end-run to achieve national gun registration of owners of both hand- and long guns; a preliminary to eventual confiscation.
Other gun control bills continue to roll from Congress: "gun free" school zones; prohibition of gun ownership to those convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse (an unconstitutional ex post facto law applying to a conviction at any time in one's past); banning of foreign gun imports; background checks at gun shows; mandated gun locks; limiting gun purchases to one a month; punitive taxation of guns and/or ammunition; registration; and confiscation of virtually all weapons.
If this trend continues, the camel will soon have its entire body under the tent, awaiting only a passing whim before upsetting it entirely.
To disarm the people...is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. George Mason.
In the wake of shooting tragedies involving children in both Great Britain and Australia, private gun ownership in both countries is now essentially nonexistent. Recently in the U.S., we have had shootings involving children at preschools, grade schools, and high schools in California, Colorado, Georgia, and other states. More and more cries go up for registration and outright bans of personal weapons.
While the Second Amendment might postpone such a fate for this country, it has done precious little to date in holding the State at bay. There are already local communities where it is either explicitly or practically impossible to purchase weapons or to carry them. The major hopeful trend in recent years is the increasing number of states legalizing concealed carry for handguns. Research shows that in such "shall carry" states, violent crime drops.
Unfortunately, most of those laws still require a permit to exercise what is a basic human right: the right to defend oneself. Imagine a journalist or a preacher being compelled to obtain training and permission from a bureaucrat in order to publish a newspaper or to practice his religion. They would be outraged...and rightly so. Even in the one state (Vermont) that mandates no permit but only lawful intent to carry a handgun, some municipalities have passed restrictive laws attempting to prohibit such carry.
Since Rand wrote her brief thoughts on gun control three decades ago, the assault on the Second Amendment has accelerated. Along with that attack has come weakening of the Fourth Amendment protection "against unreasonable searches and seizures." Without proper cause or search warrant, BATF agents have raided homes of gun owners or dealers and confiscated or destroyed their property. "Asset forfeiture" (taking property from someone only suspected — not even accused or convicted — of a crime) used in conjunction with the insane "Drug War" ropes guns into its net. The Randy Weaver and Branch Davidian horror stories in which innocent people were shot and burned alive by government forces provide further stark evidence of how far our government has sunk in obliterating our freedoms. It has done so without significant consequences to those agents involved in murdering innocent women and children...while our national media looked unquestioningly on.
[Self-defense is] justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the laws of society. Sir William Blackstone.
With its origin in the basic alternative between life and death, Objectivism would seem a natural source of strong support for those seeking to prevent the State from robbing them of defensive ability. Even beyond that is the fact that Objectivism has long warned the citizens of this country of the dangers inherent in a government running amuck.
Yet the Objectivist press remains essentially silent in this realm as the violations to our freedom and our rights mount with each passing year.
Perhaps this curious omission arises from Objectivism's emphasis on ideas as quintessentially important in our view of the world. Perhaps it is influenced by the fact that, "Morality ends at the point of a gun." Some people may be reluctant to promote the virtues of armed force...even defensive force. Perhaps it is because many intellectuals have little if any practical experiences with rifles, shotguns, or handguns. It is true that a black-metal AR-15 (the civilian version of the M-16) can appear intimidating. How to operate one is not immediately obvious. And some Objectivists may have been subconsciously influenced by the incessantly negative droning of the mass media against personal weapons.
Whatever the reasons, I believe anyone who harbors a reluctance to face these issues should reevaluate his stance. Ideas are, of course, important. But as the Founding Fathers fully recognized in our (truly) Revolutionary War, ideas without the physical means to defend and enforce them are of little import. The attempts by the British to confiscate colonial weapons did, after all, provide the trigger for our war of independence.
While morality may cease when a gun is first brought into the discussion, a gun produced in response can restore the conditions necessary for morality to operate. Rand frequently mentioned the right we all possess to resist the initiation of force. For now, the best and most effective means of doing so on the personal level are the very tools our government seeks to restrict or ban. Apparently our public officials (and, unfortunately, many otherwise well-intentioned citizens) fail to grasp what "shall not be infringed" means.
As for the "scary" quality of guns... This emotional response is no different than what occurs when facing any other novel situation. Knowledge and practice and responsible action are the antidote to fear, not evasion.
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go around repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence. Charles A. Beard.
Because of the unfortunate stigma attached to the "gun culture" in some social circles (especially those of academia), some people might be reluctant openly to advocate the Second Amendment and the rights we all possess as human beings to defend our lives from criminals and corrupt governments. Silence, however, merely sanctions one of the most egregious insults to our freedom ever perpetrated by those who seek -- not our safety -- but our slavery.
