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    Posted by Mamaemma 8 years, 5 months ago
    K, I'm not a learned Objectivist, but my opinion is that no governmental agency should be able to tell me what I can or cannot buy
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    • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
      so, no line drawn? I am in a debate currently, where firearms are considered fine, but that man is not trusted, individually, with say-a cannon-if I am consistent with the writing of the Constitution. Yet, for the Revolutionary War, all cannon was privately owned in the Colonies-mostly privateers
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      • Posted by Eyecu2 8 years, 5 months ago
        Personally my position is that anyone should be able to have any weapon that they can afford to purchase or construct. And I mean ANY weapon up to and including nuclear weapons. Yes that is extreme however I do not see that the Government has any right to disallow this right.

        Now is it reasonably possible for my next door neighbor to construct a nuke....hopefully not but it should be within their legal ability. Then again it should also be within my legal right to let's say defend myself against the imminent threat of a neighbor with a nuke.
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        • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 5 months ago
          I appreciate that the principle of liberty leads to your conclusion. But as a moral issue, I wonder if the ability to cause the extinction of the human race ought to be allowed to any individual (or group of individuals). This could potentially be accomplished with several nukes, or certain biological weapons, etc. What do you think?
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          • Posted by Eyecu2 8 years, 5 months ago
            I do see your point and that is where I believe that we should be able to police ourselves (not the government) to prevent that neighbor from possessing something as dangerous as nukes or bio weapons.
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      • Posted by Mamaemma 8 years, 5 months ago
        No line drawn. If I allow the government or another man to determine what I can or cannot own, then I have given up my freedom. I realize that I am not free in today's USA, but I am speaking here of what SHOULD be.
        And don't say that limiting what weaponry I can own is for the protection of the public. Law breakers by definition will break that law,too.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
          what about nukes? Am I putting my neighbors at risk owning something that requires a huge amount of infrastructure and safety precautions? have I destroyed their property values? Is there a difference between an individual and a company. Are nuclear power plants owned privately or all of them govt owned and operated? I don't know the answer to this
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          • Posted by broskjold22 8 years, 5 months ago
            Within the US, what private citizen needs to own a nuclear bomb? From the point of view of a nuclear arms manufacturer, what self interest would I have in selling a private individual a nuclear bomb? The protection of the public is best served by its own rational self interest.
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            • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
              well, think about it like this-should Madame Curie have been experimenting with radio active material in her home? I think it is a moot point, because no one wants to have a nuclear bomb except countries and James Bond villains
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              • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 5 months ago
                There are lots of wacky people out there. The thing that keeps people from building nuclear weapons in their garage is not the technical difficulty but the availability of fissionable material. The technical problems are not that great. Several of the people on this site could probably do it.

                If you say that everyone has the right to buy nuclear material -- which presumably you are advocating then someone will think it's cool to have one. Testing it could be a bitch, though.
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      • Posted by jsw225 8 years, 5 months ago
        Private Citizens stopped owning these weapons (like cannons) not because of laws, but because of costs. A simple cannon of that time was expensive, but still within the budget for any rich individuals to own and occasionally shoot. A modern high caliber Howitzer would cost ~$3.6 million, not counting the shells (guessing 5-10 thousand a pop)?

        Military ships of that time were not much different than the Merchant ships (in complexity and cost). But if a private citizen were to build and launch a USS Iowa Battleship, it would cost ~$1,500 million. And that doesn't count the cost to staff it, keep it running, armament, and the fuel it guzzles.

        According to the constitution and its history, anyone can buy any of these weapons if they have the cash floating around. But Modern Day interpretations interpret "Arms" as anything a soldier could carry. Such as a Rifle, Handgun, SMG's, Heavy or Light Machine Guns, Grenades, Explosives, Mines, Bladed Weapons (of various sizes), Shotguns (of all lengths), Mortars, and more I'm probably forgetting.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 5 months ago
        one of the passages in a book shows the sitting President plinking at piles of NYC telephone books with a sound suppressed pYargin. All this in the Oval Office His staff said he shouldn't do it because it isn't Presidential. He laughed and said see that red button:? I can nuke the planet but I can't shoot a .22? Presidential is not what the media says it is. It's what I say it is. And to quote Patton it's not important anyone else anyone else if I would pull a trigger or push a button it's only important that I know."
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 5 months ago
    Absolutely. Self defense is an individual right. No other individual nor proper government can infringe on or limit that right. In the world of today, self defense may be faced with innumerable types of offensive weapons including automated drones, sonics, Microwaves, lasers, government attacks with armored groups. If the individual can afford the weapon and he can find it or invent and build it, the weapon should be his. There are no rules to self defense, only the morality of using only appropriate force to make the attack stop.

    Remember in the Revolution, many of the cannons, shot, and powder as well as ships were privately owned.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
      on social media, this fact is being contested
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      • Posted by Technocracy 8 years, 5 months ago
        Social media has become the point of the spear for collectivism. Group think is busily pushing the spear home.

        Some fight against it and are having to stand strong against the hordes.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
          these are O's disputing this fact. I have no proof to offer regarding Colonies and cannons on land protecting land. There are ample examples of privateers on the ocean with cannon. I guess it is a small thing to remove a cannon from the ship to mount on a movable base. There were two armories that were pre-revolutionary time. One in Mass, the other in RI. Basically, the governor of the Provence appointed people to a militia. later the British govt paid to train people from the armories in use of weaponry. but I couldn't get any facts on whether the militia itself was private.
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          • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 5 months ago
            k, I've found this: "Journal of the United States Artillery: Published Under Direction ..., Volume 57
            By John W. Rickman, John Philip Wisser, Andrew Hero (Jr.)" which relates the private ownership of canons on plantations in Virginia.

            Additionally, there are private owned cannons today and even tanks with operable guns. Paul Allen owns his own SU-29, a Russian Fighter Jet.
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          • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 5 months ago
            One of the moves most contested just before Lexington and Concord was the confiscation of a town armory which included several cannons. Having heard about it happening (the previous day I believe), those two towns took up their arms to violently protest the seizure of their respective armories.
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  • Posted by Ed75 8 years, 5 months ago
    It is not necessary to ask "Should private citizens be ALLOWED"... anything. Put this way implies some authority can/should decide such things which is simply no so. It is up to each individual to make his own moral choices, and abide the consequences of those choices.
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  • Posted by PeterAsher 8 years, 5 months ago
    The claim that the wording of the 2nd amendment does not grant the right to bear arms is actually quite true.

    “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.” does indeed not GRANT the right, it acknowledges It’s existence!

    The amendment can therefore be seen as re-enforcing an existing right by stating the need for militia being a particular reason for not infringing upon it. Other potential infringements are not addressed but they would nevertheless be just that, infringements.

    “Someday, my friend, you will learn that words have exact meanings.”

    Francisco, in Atlas Shrugged.>>>>>

    I came across this opinion by the Supreme Court.

    "The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms."

    Therefore, you could repeal the Amendment and that would only result in the need for a militia no longer being a reason not to infringe!
    There are some who say that,” OK, you have the right to bear arms but at the time the amendment was written, there were only muskets etc. The Founding Fathers did not envision the modern weaponry of today and only were addressing the right to bear the arms that existed at that time.”
    Well of course the weapons were what they were, but the Amendment was written in the context of the citizens being armed at the same level of weaponry as the Government. By that comparison, I see the Amendment as granting us the right to stockpile some tanks, a couple of F-111”s and a maybe a “Ship-of-the-Line.”
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    • Posted by ChuckyBob 8 years, 5 months ago
      Well said. I might add that a detailed reading of Federalist Paper 46 supports your conclusion. The ex-colonists had just won their freedom from a tyrannical government and saw the absolute necessity of having the general populace armed to the point that the federal government would not even consider becoming tyrannical...best laid plans of mice and men. Maybe we need a few more M4s in private hands.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years, 5 months ago
    I apologize for being late to this conversation, but three thoughts on this come to mind:
    1) The intent of the 2nd amendment was to provide a proficient civilian militia not under the control of a central government, with the implied warning to an overbearing government that it can be removed by force if necessary. That implies that more than just a force of riflemen should be permitted. What weapons that implies I leave to everyone's imagination.
    2) "Arms" under the 2nd amendment does not just apply to firearms. During the revolution, knives, hatchets, swords, cavalry lances, and spear called a "spontoon" were also considered legitimate tools for defense, but government at all levels have chosen to deny citizens the right to carry many of these weapons. It seems perverse that I can carry a powerful handgun while at the same time not be allowed to carry a knife with a blade longer than 3". Few 2nd amendment supporters have raised this issue; why I'm not sure.
    3) Technology has created new "weapons" that government is unsure if citizens ownership should be denied. Cyber attacks can be devastating to government structure, but so far, ownership of certain kinds of software tools haven't been restricted, so long as malicious use isn't demonstrated. Restrictions on ownership of these "arms" would inevitably lead to an invasive police state.
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  • Posted by GaryL 8 years, 5 months ago
    Any weaponry that could fall into the hands of a mad man should be completely legal in the hands of good men!
    How many American tanks and sophisticated arms are currently in the hands of ISIS?
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 5 months ago
    Some of what you are looking for is contained in this study
    http://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content...

    which covers the 1934 and 1968 laws.

    It appears much of the philosophy behind their passage was simple 'fear.' In any cases it traces the methods used to 'get around' minor impediments such as the Constitutional Second Amendment question.

    The main proponent back then was Senator Thomas Dodd Senior of Connecticutt and the story went - back in the sixties he had tasked the Library of Congress to translate the Gun Control Act of Germany in the 1930's and used it as a basis for US law.

    Back to the purely philosophical part. Purely philosophical has gained us same sex marriage and Executive Orders and the punitive Income Tax.

    The hue and cry back then was mail order weapons and coincided for a while when I worked for InterArmCo at #10 Prince Street in Alexandria. Sam Cummings the boss and owner had bought up as many WWII weapons out of Europe as fast as he could fund the purchase. No outdoor magazine was seen without it's back cover hosting Klein's of Chicago's advertising $19.95 plus S&H for every kind of rifle or pistol used in that war. One of them went to a barely qualified former Marine in Dallas TX. Described as a Marksman that is the lowest level of qualification Sharpshooter and Expert are the middle and highest. Side issue.

    I myself had well over 30 weapons just from working at InterarmCo.

    Philosophy never entered my head. the cost of shipping them home was more important so I bought a 57Chevy and loaded all of them in the trunk. Minus ammunition ....too heavy.

    The philosophy then if any were thought of was I want that rifle I have the money. Now it's time for deer season.

    What it is today is this. If I had the money i would not buy a nuclear bazooka. i had no use for it nor any training and it was no good for deer hunting.

    Now my philosophy is simple. I want one because they say I can't have one. The rest is just technology.
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  • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 5 months ago
    We discussed a similar topic some months ago, sparked by the escape of a king cobra in Florida. I think that Technocracy's answer is along the lines I am thinking: There is no prohibition of the ability to own something, but there are qualifications on the facilities you must have in order to possess something classed as dangerous. So if a college has to have a Biosafety level 4 laboratory facility in order to work with Yersinia pestis, then a private citizen who has a BSL-4 lab can also play with bubonic plague. (This goes for cobras and nukes too.)

    Jan
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    • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
      before the Revolution, there were laws in some colonies, which amounted to-"don't be a dick" regarding dangerous something or other
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      • Posted by Technocracy 8 years, 5 months ago
        My kind of law LOL +1
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        • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
          I think the fear of "what's the most dangerous thing someone can own" is a moot issue. Evil people will do evil things. Most people will not (well maybe how they vote) I think there are way more valid fears out there that should be addressed over any kind of weapon controls. and they involve the govt
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          • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 5 months ago
            A lot to think about here.

            "Don't be a dick" rules. In the medieval martial sport that I participate in, we have such a rule ("Combatants shall behave in a knightly and chivalrous manner..."). In any instance when there has been misbehavior on the field of combat, this rule is brought up...and virtually never enforced. It does not provide a hard standard by which one can say, "You did wrong!" So while I like the idea of a 'dont be a dick' rule, my experience with a self-selecting set of people is that this type of rule does not work.

            I agree that Evil people will do evil things, even if all they have is a set of toenail clippers. But when I think of protecting myself against Y. pestis, I don't think of Evil. I think of one of my ex-employee's, "C". "C" is a very intelligent young man and he is entirely good- hearted. He also has the organization of a colony of sea sponges and the attention span of a squirrel. He would be exactly the type of person who would be willing to risk himself experimenting with Plague bacteria to try to discover a better vaccine...and who would then leave the window open. "C" is good, not evil. He also would be a danger to me. Since he is intelligent, if he had a Level 4 facility, he would have a set of SOP's he had to go through (and there would be no windows) and I would be safer...and we might get that vaccine.

            Jan
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            • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 5 months ago
              "C" really would. He'd be terribly sorry afterward too.

              So, Jan's right, it's not just the evil factor but the "oops" factor you have to take into account.
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              • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
                But isn't this always the excuse for taking away freedom? and why does the govt get a pass? I am thinking of the recent toxic spill (actually 2) in Colorado? The evidence , in my opinion, does not support these pre-emptive uses of force (i.e. regs) make us safer. Where ever people have been freer, natural rights protected, but nothing else, the people live longer, are wealthier and have happier lives. Even well-meaning regs always slow inventions. Inventions make this happen, not preventative measures
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                • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 5 months ago
                  I hate regulations as much as the next guy -- actually I hate them a lot more than the average next guy. But is there no philosophical limits to what I'm allowed to do until I actually harm my neighbor.

                  We live in a world where a suitably knowledgeable person can construct a virus that could kill virtually the entire human population if it got out of his lab.

                  Do we have no recourse until we are doomed.

                  As to it being the government, that's the appropriate agency for retaliatory use of force. Of course you have to make the argument that my R&D project forcibly damages your safety without your consent.
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                  • Posted by cowboynuclear 8 years, 5 months ago
                    Complete the thought of right-to-life to get consequences and the deterrent answer, e.g.you have the right to live your life, you do NOT have the right to purposely deprive that of another, and if you do, you lose your right to life.

                    Example: If you drive impaired, you are committing attempted-murder. If you succeed in killing someone, you committed murder and your life is forfeit. The provider of the impairments only responsibility is reminding them of the above.

                    Apply to the Yersinia example. When you get the bug from someone, they have to tell you, and "society" as a whole tells you similarly, that if you screw up, you are committing attempted negligent homicide, and if someone gets sick, you are responsible for their medical care and jail time. If you screw up and someone dies, your life is forfeit. Period. Then let the deterrent effect take care of what regulations otherwise would expected (not necessarily succeed) to accomplish.

                    Same with weapons. You have the right to any weapon. If you kill an innocent, you die. If you attempt to use it against an innocent, your life is forfeit to your attempted victim (self defense). Therefore you are more careful.
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                  • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
                    but is this actually happening or do we just fear it happening? and do laws keep such people from doing that that? I think if they want to do that, they're ignoring all sorts of precautions, including laws on the book
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                    • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 5 months ago
                      Well I know the 1918 flu which killed 20-50 million has been recreated. I've heard rumors that someone 'improved it' as an experiment and got a higher kill ratio. Clearly we are just at the ground floor of being able to recreate genetic material.

                      You can already order have genetic material made to order GenScript will build them for you for .35 a base pair -- they have an online order discount http://www.genscript.com/gene_synthes...

                      This is just going to get faster and cheaper. Affordable solutions for doing it yourself will become available and you will be able to generate any genetic code that you want. I'm sure there will be lots of available 'interesting' sequences on the internet.
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          • Posted by Technocracy 8 years, 5 months ago
            Exactly.

            If you seriously try to kill someone you can do so with no weapons beyond what you were born with.

            What you use to do the killing is less meaningful than the desire to do so and initiating the attack.

            People have been killing each other long before modern weapons were invented. Doubtless the weapons a few centuries from now will be much different than current ones.

            Humans do the killing, the weapons are just tools.
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  • Posted by D_E_Liberty 8 years, 5 months ago
    Well, from an objectivist point of view, and more specifically, Ayn Rand..... I noted in Reardon's "court speech" he tells the authorities that they will have to arrest him at gun point for violating the obfiscatory laws. Note, she had the option of granting R an entire private army to fight off the government... But she chose not to. in the non- fiction world, we have to ask the realpolitik question of whether debating whether or not we should have the right to privately posses nuclear weapons. consider how that provides ammunition (pardon the literal reference) to critics of Objectivism how claim we are lunatic fringe. I mean is anyone here seriously considering acquiring a shoulder fired rocket to defend themselves against an authoritarian Waco style attack by the ATF? FBI ? Etc. As a gun owner, I think as soon as you start arguing that you need military style weapons to defend yourself against the government versus intruders, we don't do the cause of Objectivism, or Reason any favors. sorry for the decenting option, but I think Ayn would say something similar. But feel free to convince me I wrong... That's why I'm here.
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    • Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years, 5 months ago
      The problem with restricting ownership of "military style" weapons is that it inevitably focuses on AR-15 based weapons, because of the image of military using automatic fire. However, the modular construction of these weapons, allowing multiple calibers by changing out barrels and magazines allow hunters to bag a wide variety of game, from varmints to big game with the same weapon, at far less cost than buying multiple different weapons. The same can't be said for AK-47/74 weapons.
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  • Posted by Grendol 8 years, 5 months ago
    Arms are tools. You can use them to create value through the preservation of freedom. Just because someone can use the tool for evil should not be sufficient reason to take that from them. The logical fallacy that the existence of a potential to commit a crime is reason enough to ban something has been abused as pretext to disarm many people. What I find is that tools (be they capital, actual tools, or weapons) in general are coveted by the new ruling class in a collectivist society as a means to achieve, build, maintain, and monopolize power for themselves while they subjugate the people they 'serve'. Arms, being a created thing, are impossible to effectively eradicate from a population that wishes to have them. In the Palestinian Territories I have seen photos of preteen boys making gun parts in a basement factory. You can make black powder and a cannon with a trip to the hardware store. You can make rudimentary chemical weapons with a high school chemistry text and a trip to the hardware store and possibly a drug store. Banning arms is ineffective in the long term, but serves the short term purpose of weakening the violent resistance of an invaded population. Many many people have ownership or the ability to possess small arms and possibly arms of mass destruction but commit no moral crime with them because they chose not to, not because there is a law. Ultimately private citizens will own arms because they want to. If they want to make it more difficult for their assailants endeavors to subjugate them, then Yes Private Citizens Should Own Arms.
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    • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 5 months ago
      Quote: “Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is , so he can do something to you that you wouldn’t let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.” —Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith, Hope, 2001
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  • Posted by tentoone 8 years, 5 months ago
    Yes they should and the way are govt is suppose to work is we own what the govt has. I have representives from my local district to represent how they use my stuff.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 5 months ago
    I disagree with your question, K;;; "be allowed to" should not
    be there. . it's impossible to reverse history, anyway, to
    prevent people from getting things which are dangerous.
    there are those who know chemistry, physics, biology, etc.
    where weapons-related science is located. . and if I could
    power my house with a little nuke, and I could afford it,
    I would do so. . but it could be turned into a weapon,
    so the society disallows it ... almost no matter how many
    bucks I have.

    I suppose that you wanted to talk about whether the society
    should be "allowed to evaluate people" regarding weapon
    purchase and ownership. . the fact is that it's going to do so,
    and it will prevent ownership to the extent possible. -- j

    p.s. this question just begs for a "control" comment. . social
    control of individuals generally sucks. . conformity begets
    sterility and decay. . creativity thrives on the lack of control.
    so, whatever control a society exerts on itself speaks directly
    to its health ... thus we have health versus health, a tightrope.
    cultural thriving versus self-destruction. . we will debate this
    forever.
    .
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    • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
      Ok, OK, I used poor wording. LOL. In more than one place. I guess I was lazy when I typed it out. Unfortunately, it happens.
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      • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 5 months ago
        not criticism, just observation, K;;; we could have dirty bomb
        or biological or chemical attack plans being finalized. . finding
        those people, who are assuredly among us, might be the question. -- j

        p.s. I will pose this as an "ask the gulch" question.
        ..
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  • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 5 months ago
    Allow me to suggest that the question should be re-phrased. A weapon is a tool, nothing more. It is not a concept, idea or philosophy. From a philosophical point of view, restricting an individual to own a tool is ridiculous. We should be talking about the uses and the applications of the tool. In this case, a weapon tool has mainly these uses: self defense, attack, hunting, sport and historical/collector value. In the context of current issues, I don't think that there is much argument against possessing these tools for the purpose of enjoying hunting, sport or collecting. The real issues are defense and attack. So, the question should have been phrased "should individuals be allowed to attack others and to defend themselves?" I think that all are in agreement that neither the society nor individuals give anyone a right to attack others (without just cause). Certainly Objectivists are very clear on that. So, the remaining issue is self-defense. This, I believe, is not just an issue of an Objectivist viewpoint - any sane person must recognize and acknowledge the right to self-defense. No living being on Earth, including plants, could survive without employing self-defense. I would argue that for any human to actively deny anyone else the ability to defend themselves is an act of aggression designed to enslave the subject. But, one would ask, what about the same tool being used for attacking, which we all condone? The simple truth of the matter is that legal prohibitions of a certain behavior, by definition, stop only those people that follow the law. Thus, telling a killer not to kill is not very effective. The law can punish the killer after the fact, but his victim, enslaved and disarmed by the State, has no recourse. Wait, one would say, the State will protect. The facts, or course, do not support this. If the State was in fact capable of protecting its citizens, there would have been no murders, robberies, rapes, burglaries or any other violent crimes. But no matter how hard and earnestly the State may try to protect a citizen from another citizen, it cannot, by definition, protect the citizens from the State itself. To anyone that questions the potential criminality of any State, one only needs a short glance at human history, including current affairs, to see this (those that are willing to see, of course). Arguments that those criminal acts are "impossible" in America are laughable; the Jews in Germany said the same thing in the '30's. The next logical question would be what kind of weapons are good to have? I would say that the tool needs to be appropriate for the intended purpose and, at this point, I think that logical people will agree that the purpose of self-defense is an inherent right of all. If the potential attacker is an individual criminal, a rifle, shotgun or a handgun will probably be sufficient. If one wants to protect himself from a gang of criminals, an automatic weapon will be more appropriate. If we the citizens have to protect ourselves from a criminal State, heavier weapons will be required, although the cost becomes prohibitive and what one cannot do individually, a mass of armed people will still act as a reasonable deterrent to those individuals who wish to use the power of the State for criminal purposes.
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  • Posted by Maritimus 8 years, 5 months ago
    Hello, K,
    It seems to me that it is important to accurately define terms in the key part of your question: "...citizens be allowed to own any weaponry...".
    Philosophy deals with individual humans. Citizenship has no significance in that context.
    As others have pointed out, almost anything can be used as a weapon.
    "Allowing" implies an authority to infringe on liberty of living, i.e. restricting freedom of action.
    Owning means freedom of action in using, consuming and disposing of property.
    I think that Objectivist philosophy accepts the necessity of a government of limited powers for a successful and perpetual thriving of large groups of individuals.
    In my view, the only area where government may interfere with the freedom of an individual is as a reaction to the individual's actions. So, a government has good reason to impose rational rules about minimizing the risks to other from the fact that an individual's property exists. That does not include the right of the government to take the individual's property out of existence on a whim, so to speak.
    What I am trying conclude is that only actions on the part of the individuals can cause a reaction from others, including the government in "others". The individuals must not initiate the use of force.
    Does this make sense to you?
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 5 months ago
    Yes.This flows from the right of self-defense.

    Civilization draws strength from numbers. Large numbers of armed citizens deter the would-be criminal or dictator. If a Japanese general really did say any invading army would find a gun behind any blade of grass, he would not have been kidding.

    The Triumvirate of Atlantis was in fact a Committee of Safety, after the mold of similar Committees before and during the American War for Independence, before we had a genuine Continental Army. And even then, Committees of Safety handled police functions before the advent of organized police in America's largest cities.

    The first police in the world were the rhabdouchoi, or literally, stick bearers, of ancient Athens. These were municipal slaves carrying sticks and detailed for crowd control. That stick survives today as a police officer's baton.

    So right away you know: a policeman is a creature of the government. Rand recognizes the legitimacy of the police. But I don't think she ever imagined disarming ordinary citizens. Recall: even Henry Rearden, at his lowest point, still carried a gun, and the police never questioned his right so to carry.

    I mention all the above, to say this: modern police are over-militarized and strike many as more army of occupation than protective force.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 5 months ago
    Government should have an Ebay site offering every weapon it has for sale to sovereign individuals.
    (Especially those cool weapons that destroyed the WTC and the ones used in Tianjin, China.)
    I really want one of those big saucers from Independence Day.
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  • Posted by WilliamRThomas 8 years, 5 months ago
    In the Objectivist view, you should deal with others by trading value for value and you have the right to take such actions as you judge best, so long as you do not initiate the use of force against others.

    http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/a...

    This implies that you have the right to own weaponry of all sorts.

    Now, such a system would make it easier for a malevolent crazy to make some kind of horrible terrorist attack using weapons bought on the free market, up to and conceivably including nuclear weapons.

    So how would a free society based on Objectivist premises deal with that? I think it is hard to know all the details in advance, because we don't live in that circumstance. But let me offer some thoughts:

    Weapons makers might be held liable for (rights violating) damages caused with their weapons, in some circumstances. This might cause them to institute a licensing and oversight scheme (all private and contractual, of course). Think of Underwriters Laboratories' testing of electrical products.

    Another thought: we currently own and operate many kinds of dangerous devices and chemicals, including cars, trucks, gasoline, natural gas, and airplanes (9/11 showed how dangerous an airplane can be). But we don't have much vehicular homicide (apart from car on car crashes). This is due to people being familiar with the technology and aware of its potential. Remember: not only the criminals or crazies will have access to weapons in a free society. So it may be harder for a crazy to put his plans into action in a free society than it would be in our controlled and mostly disarmed society.

    There is also the doctrine of "clear and present danger." If you restrain an aggressive person before he assaults someone (say, in a bar fight), that's probably not a rights violation. And something similar would be true of restraining a crazy with big weapons.

    A final thought: when people have freedom, they also have responsibility. So with greater arms freedom, we would expect (in time) for the vast majority of people to learn to use them responsibly. A free society would also incentivize productive living: people would be less tempted to lash out or dream of violent conquest. It's no accident that Middle-Easterners (with little freedom of any sort) dream of conquest and fight horrible wars, whereas people in the free world, even now much more able to make war as private citizens if we wanted to, live mostly at peace.

    I hope these thoughts are helpful.
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    • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 5 months ago
      I think you're on some shaky Objectivist ground in your approach to weapon and dangerous material availability and liability for manufacture or sale of such items. I think you're dangerously close to Pragmaticism and/or Relativism. A gun, for example, is a fancy paper weight until it is picked up by it's owner and operated. Is that result traceable to the item or the person that made it or sold it, or to the person deciding to pick it up and operate it? Poison's are manufactured and sold on a regular basis in our society, but we place the liabilities on the actor that directly or surreptitiously administer to an other purposely or accidentally.

      I also see a similar problem with your restraint of an 'aggressive' individual. The owner certainly has a full right to deny service to anyone he chooses and his decisions will affect his business, either positively or negatively. But for another patron(s) to restrain based on a suspicion (fear) or just not liking aggressive people is not justified under Objective individual rights.

      And to the thought that, 'when people have freedom, they also have responsibility', do they? And if they do, who says so? I would take the position that there is a set of morals that derive from the metaphysics and epistemology of Objectivism that places one in the position, in society dependent on interactions with others, that in order to defend one's individual rights, one can only do so morally if he also respects other's individual rights. I would argue that is not 'responsibility', it's self-interest.

      I think that sometimes, many in the Objectivist camps focus on the non-initiation of force, rather than the reasons or causes of non-initiations of force.
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      • Posted by WilliamRThomas 8 years, 5 months ago
        I'm perfectly willing to admit that if we tried a social system with unlimited weapons ownership and found we couldn't develop free institutions to ensure that generally weapons wouldn't be used for mass-murder, then we would have to adjust our concept of the how rights principles apply and what the just society would consist of.

        But since the evidence is that when a population is well-armed, educated, and free, there tends to be little successful abuse, I'm not going to go there yet.

        Currently, we live largely disarmed throughout the developed world, and we panic over terror attacks that affect a very small percentage of our population. Many Americans felt less safe in 2002 than they had in 1992, but violent crime had been falling and continued to fall, so that, despite the terror attacks, Americans had become safer.

        I repeat whenever I can that we can't fully predict the institutions of a modern free society, because it's just very hard to predict circumstances one doesn't live in. Think of the technology predictions or cultural predictions from circa 1980: our current circumstances, from internet to smart phones to global jihad, are very different from what any of us imagined then.
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        • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 5 months ago
          I sometimes think that the biggest failure in mass humanity, is the idea from some in any group and in any age, that they can devise or design a 'society' for the total group that will move the group in a direction, supposedly one desired for the best of all. But any attempt to do that inevitably and of necessity neglects the good of the individual. I don't think it can do otherwise.

          Even for Objectivist that have extensive understanding and knowledge of the underlying principles, and that have given considerable thought to the applications in life centered on the best for the individual, still have a desire for something other than the 'chaos' of the laissez faire model. And I think that desire, or fear of that 'chaos' particularly arises with the issue of 'non-initiation of force'. Not so much that one shouldn't do it, but the continual fear that one remains subject to the vagaries of nature, the nature of man, and one's abilities to defend his own rights--the what if's of life. The reality of human nature and the fragility of human life overrides the concept of the ideal.

          There are (3) three quotes I like when I consider this issue:
          “As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.” —Adam Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

          There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts, a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading, a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice , not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.” —Marcus Tulles Cicero (106– 43 BC)

          Of every One Hundred men, Ten shouldn’t even be there, Eighty are nothing but targets, Nine are real fighters . . . We are lucky to have them . . . They make the battle, Ah, but the One, One of them is a Warrior . . . and He will bring the others back.” —Heraclitus (circa 500 B.C.)

          The concepts I take from these are in Smith's case, society gains most when it stays out of the way of the individual pursuing his own self interest. From Cicero, that we must expect as the natural condition, that we must accept and be prepared to defend our own lives in any way possible, and that such action is at all times moral. And from Heraclitus, that most are not suited for such conditions and requirements of life, but that one man that is able and willing may bring the rest with him into safety, even though that is not his personal goal over the ability to save himself.

          Although I can agree with you that we (as in all of us) can't fully predict the circumstances we don't live in (though I worked with individuals in the 70's from Motorola and MSA that predicted the cell phone age, and others from Intel, GE, Square D, and Modicon that predicted the internet--though none of those could predict the exact infrastructure or the impacts on institutions and society), we can predict with a fair amount of certainty that approximately 5% of the male population will be psychopaths and will inflict their individual harms on society and other individuals, barring individuals preparing and acting to defend themselves from those predations. We can predict with equal certainty that at least 50% of the population will have IQ's below 100 and will drag the rest of us in directions we don't want to go, again barring genetic intervention or halting societal support of those that can't make it on their own. And we can predict with near absolute certainty that there will be war on some part of the planet.
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          • Posted by WilliamRThomas 8 years, 5 months ago
            Thanks, @zenphamy. Your points are all well taken.

            But the market that Smith describes exists in a context of law. It doesn't provide that law, and what the limits of that law should be, is what we are discussing here. Also, people don't always act for their self-interest. But by and large, they tend to do so.

            The moral right to survive that Cicero describes is ours, but it makes a big difference to us whether we live in an environment of continual warfare or general peace.

            But I take the main point: that we do best when we are free, and that even in the best society there will still be war and crime. In those cases, in a free society, those willing and able to deal with highly dangerous criminals will do so.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
      this quote of Rand's (which I do not want to take out of context) "The use of physical force--even its retaliatory use--cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens." and the 2nd Amendment
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      • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 5 months ago
        Under a proper government the people give up the use of retaliatory (not a present danger) force, but not self defense. This is true under Rand and Locke.

        If a government is not a proper government then you can use force in a revolution. Locke and the Founders were explicit on this point and it is implicit in Atlas Shrugged.

        Under a proper government there is going to be very little interest in owning a rocket launcher, for example, except by historians.

        More important than the types of weapons we can own in case of revolution was the Founders idea that we should not have a standing army. While taking this literally right now would not make sense, it also does not make sense to have police with military weapons nor to have our military still occupying countries 70 years after WWII.
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      • Posted by WilliamRThomas 8 years, 5 months ago
        This is a legal question: how the government should be structured and how citizens are expected to respond to rights violations.

        The principle here is that the law puts the use of force under objective oversight. This could amount to nothing more than that any private use of force must submit to after-action adjudication by the courts.
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        • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 5 months ago
          And the correct principle should be that any initiation of force should be under oversight. Any self defense force should be supported, and should face no more after-action adjudication than that of government (official) use of force.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 5 months ago
      could you address Rand's statements in ch 14 of TVOS, regarding proper govt vs. privately contracted police forces. The example specifically of someone whose wallet is stolen shouldn't go door to door to find the thief?
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      • Posted by WilliamRThomas 8 years, 5 months ago
        In general, response to crimes beyond the heat of the moment should fall under the management of the police and the law. Searches would require warrants, for instance, and people need to know that that the investigator or searcher is operating in accordance with the (rights-respecting) law, which is what a police uniform or ID is supposed to indicate.

        Again, exactly how such a system should work is a matter to settle when our laws are in that context.

        I would think that there might not as sharp a distinction as we now make between professional police, private investigators, and deputized citizens.

        If we had a system where everyone was acting as a vigilante all the time, responding as they saw fit to what they saw as rights violations (this is what many anarchists advocate), the result would be warfare, since people often misjudge the justice of a case when they act off-the-cuff.
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