Objectivism and Gun Control

[Burke]

Dr. Harry Binswanger, an Objectivist philosopher who was friends with Ayn Rand, writes a column for Forbes. This week he weighs in on gun control from an Objectivist perspective. In doing so, he delves further into the Objectivist view of philosophy and govt:

"The answer [to the issue of gun control] I’ve come to is radical: reject entirely the collectivist mindset. Don’t look at populations; don’t ask: among 300 million Americans, would law X result in more lives being saved than lost? That sort of cost-benefit analysis is amoral; lives are not balanceable one against the other. And, in practice, it leads to endlessly battling statistical studies. I realized I should not take a God’s eye perspective, looking down on the flock, seeking to preserve the herd. Mankind is not a herd.

"Junking the collectivist approach, ridding myself of the idea that the lives of the few can be sacrificed to the lives of the many, I found the issue almost settled itself. Taking the individualist approach, I asked myself: what laws should the individual be subject to? What is the principle governing the individual’s relation to the state?"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybin...sis-is-amoral/

[bluelang]

That'd be lovely if we all lived on islands by ourselves. We don't.

[Burke]

It's the fact that we don't live on islands by ourselves that makes the idea of individual rights necessary.

[bluelang]

Well we have individual rights in spades here in America. Perhaps you could spend some time recognizing the value of what we have rather than pining over imagined losses.

[umcpgator]

So when does individual rights turn into I"ll do whatever I want because I can?

[ChartsandGrafs]

Originally Posted by bluelang

Well we have individual rights in spades here in America. Perhaps you could spend some time recognizing the value of what we have rather than pining over imagined losses.

LOL, tell that to all the innocent people imprisoned in rape cages for the non-crime of smoking and/or possessing a natural plant. Tell that to all the innocent people imprisoned in rape cages for attempting to avoid being extorted by the federal government tax Mafia.

This government doesn't recognize individual rights if it's not convenient for them, and it's doubtful that they ever have.

[wargunfan]

There have been numerous cases of police stopping black people in their automobiles and questioning them for no other reason than their skin color. This led to the accusation that police were charging people with the crime of "driving while black". In other words the police were profiling black folk because in that area most crimes were being committed by blacks. This is a form of preventive law enforcement by profiling innocent people and should be disgusting to any fair minded person. Likewise any law which has as its aim preventing crime by profiling the law abiding, should be abhorrent to any American who believes in individual rights. The belief that I might someday commit a crime should not confer upon the government any right to preemptively strip me of my Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. And that includes so called assault rifles. Assault is an action not a rifle. You can be assaulted with a knife but we do not categorize any knives as "assault knives". I can assault you with a hammer yet we have no "assault hammers". Again, assault is an intent not a weapon. Military style weapons which are owned for self defense should not be preemptively outlawed by well meaning politicians who are nevertheless stripping law abiding Americans of the right to their choice of weapons for self defense. These are not machine guns. They operate no differently than a hunting rifle. The government is overstepping its role as the protector of my rights when it strips me of the right to defend my family with the semiautomatic rifle of my choice.

[ChartsandGrafs]

Originally Posted by umcpgator

So when does individual rights turn into I"ll do whatever I want because I can?

Never.

What you just described is how government functions, not individual rights.

[Minister_of_Information]

While public safety is a concern, certain principles are inalienable by statistics. Defining that line in the sand is, frankly, an existential exercise.

[Burke]

There is a point at which the possession of certain weapons alone is a threat of force, which is itself force. A robber threatening a victim with a gun is forcing him even if he doesn't actually fire it. Individuals with nukes are such a threat. But individuals alone with ordinary weapons are not an objective threat.

The highest murder rate in the US is in Washington, DC, which has the most restrictive gun laws. The lowest murder rate is in Vermont, which has the least restrictive. And clearly, children should not be allowed to have guns without direct adult supervision.

Leftists advocating gun control look at individuals as members of a herd to be husbanded by them, as assets of "society" to be used, and not as individuals with rights and lives of their own.

The fact that one person may violate the rights of another is not alone justification for the govt to violate our rights. If that were the case, none of us have any rights.

I might add that, IMO, the same Leftists advocating gun control are the ones in charge of our education system, our progressive education system, which is destroying the minds of children and causing many of the problems.

Our progressive madrassas and the anti-life philosophy children are getting from the cradle to the grave is far more deadly than people with guns.

The fact is that we have long had as a part of our culture some very bad ideas, and today those ideas are being forced upon us with far more intensity than before, not just in the school system, but almost everywhere.

[OaktownGator]

Originally Posted by wargunfan

There have been numerous cases of police stopping black people in their automobiles and questioning them for no other reason than their skin color. This led to the accusation that police were charging people with the crime of "driving while black". In other words the police were profiling black folk because in that area most crimes were being committed by blacks. This is a form of preventive law enforcement by profiling innocent people and should be disgusting to any fair minded person. Likewise any law which has as its aim preventing crime by profiling the law abiding, should be abhorrent to any American who believes in individual rights. The belief that I might someday commit a crime should not confer upon the government any right to preemptively strip me of my Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. And that includes so called assault rifles. Assault is an action not a rifle. You can be assaulted with a knife but we do not categorize any knives as "assault knives". I can assault you with a hammer yet we have no "assault hammers". Again, assault is an intent not a weapon. Military style weapons which are owned for self defense should not be preemptively outlawed by well meaning politicians who are nevertheless stripping law abiding Americans of the right to their choice of weapons for self defense. These are not machine guns. They operate no differently than a hunting rifle. The government is overstepping its role as the protector of my rights when it strips me of the right to defend my family with the semiautomatic rifle of my choice.

I agree in principal with you.

But is there a line, where a weapon is too powerful to reasonably allow the general public... anything termed as a WMD for instance?

If so, it appears there is some level of negotiation that needs to occur as to what level of weapon is too dangerous?

We could try to look at it the other way around and say that if a weapon cannot be entrusted to an individual, no govt should be entrusted with it either... but there is no way to enforce that.