The Philosophy of Gun Control

The gun control argument is often presented as one of ‘facts’ and ‘logic’ and ‘numbers’. How often is all of that actually a front for philosophical argument?

This breaks down into two questions, really, or two possibilities. How often is the person who is speaking of facts and numbers really arguing from a philosophical position that they, themselves, don’t even recognise?

Or how often is it that they do recognise that they have a philosophy but are afraid that others won’t share it, so they couch everything in terms of facts and numbers?

Regardless of which it is, it is very important that we get at the philosophical underpinning of the issue. Because depending on your philosophy, not only might you need different numbers to convince you, you might not actually even care about numbers.

James Mills

has written his first post in what I hope will be an interesting letter exchange. In it, and you should read it, he points out that, at the bottom of the gun control discussion/argument/fight are philosophical disagreements.

Skinny Dipping

Let’s take a wildly different subject. Let’s talk about skinny dipping. What would it take for you and your wife to go skinny dipping? Well, at first, it might seem as if facts and numbers would be important. What are the odds of someone ‘catching’ you? If you are all by yourself in the middle of a trackless wilderness, where you haven’t seen anyone for days… those ‘facts’ would be different than if you were in your suburban house looking at your backyard pool.

But we need to realise that these facts, these numbers, are only valid when put in the context of desire, indeed of philosophy. To the woman who was raised with a horror of anything smacking of exhibitionism, even a million to one chance in a wilderness area, even with her own husband, the odds will be too great. To the young boy at the age before he is conscious of the importance of clothing, he will strip off quite happily on a beach in front of thousands of onlookers.

The odds of being seen naked will only be relevant when these odds are in the context of how important it is not to be seen naked. European teenagers, even quite conservative ones, think nothing of (or, at least, claim to think nothing of and quite shocked some American friends of mine) stripping off to go swimming when in a ‘wild’ sort of area… boys and girls all together. European and African doctors routinely have their patients undress in quite public places. Been there, done that.

What is the Foundation?

So

James Mills

is quite right that we have to subordinate all of the ‘odds’ to the question of philosophy. For the citizen who prefers a disarmed populace, the rising tide of ‘knife crime’ will not cause them to re-look at their ban on guns, it will just lead to their banning knives. And once the knives are banned…

It is only once you have the philosophical foundation laid that you can start asking yourself questions of odds and the like.

Which brings us to a problem:

Rather, they support those measures as incremental steps toward what they truly want: a country without much private ownership of guns, like Japan or Australia or Great Britain.

James Mills

, A Vision of Peace

This is not a philosophical statement. Or, at least, it is not anything resembling a root statement. What basic foundation principles are there which would lead one to want a country without much private ownership of guns?

Well, my temptation is to turn the question around and ask why they want a ‘disarmed’ population? Because if they are using the word ‘peace’, then we either have a naïveté problem, or a slavery problem.

Naïveté

If the peace advocate merely thinks that ‘guns=violence ergo lack-of-guns=peace’, then they are merely naive, and their naïveté needs to be dealt with before any decent conversation can happen. Peace, and its lack, are matters of the human heart and having nothing to do with weapons. If we were all stripped, bound, and gagged, it might be possible that we would do less damage to each other; but that is not what most of us mean by ‘peace’.

Slavery

The problem that I think that the ‘Vision of Peace’ people actually have is a slavery problem. As Kipling wrote:

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,⁸

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know." ⁹ 

I believe that the actual underlying desire is slavery. To bind and sell us to some power. The ‘peace’ that they want is the peace of the disarmed slave, the lack of power to resist.

Which philosophy?

In order to have this discussion we will have to get deeper into the philosophies involved. I am a theonomist, Reformed Baptist, etc etc, so my cards are on the table. But what philosophy do the gun-control advocates advocate for? From whence does their gun-control desire spring?

Libertarians

One political philosophy (which makes it a very partial philosophy indeed, since no philosophy worth its salt can ignore the fundamental issues of God, creation, sin, etc.) that has an interesting role to play in the gun control issue is that of Libertarians. They are often some of the best-read and most rational people on the issues of gun control… except that they seem to have two coloured glasses.

Libertarians agree with progressives on some things, liberals on some things, and conservatives on some things. But when they agree with progressives they turn off their brains, and when they agree with conservatives they close their mouths. So when they argue for, for example, jury nullification, it is usually for marijuana charges, not gun charges.

Anyway, Libertarians on gun control are a confused mess. Because they think we should have the liberty to own guns, but not to shoot anyone.

Progressives

Now that progressives have won power over many of the organs of society, what they want is a disarmed populace. A disarmed and effeminate populace. With orange hair and confused about their gender.

Conservatives

Political conservatives are the ultimate anti-gun control advocates, but they are, unfortunately, also the most pro-police (FBI, Army, etc). And they have been very pro-government schools. That leads to quite a bit of tension.

Conclusion

Winston Churchill speaking to Neville Chamberlain, 'You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.'

I think a discussion on how a given philosophy reacts to the entire gun control discussion would be interesting. But before we can seriously discuss it, we would have to nail down what the philosophy is. Merely saying, ‘Less guns, more peace’ is not even something that can be intelligently discussed. What do you mean by ‘peace’? Who gets to have the guns that do exist? What is ‘less’?

In common practice in gun control politics to leave the guns in the hands of the police and army, and a common failure to leave them in the hands of criminals. I could more easily get behind a policy that reversed this. Perhaps only women under five foot three and weighing less than 150 lbs (is that too heavy?) should be allowed to have guns. That would be a fun discussion.

---

Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.

If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

---

Links

Letter #1 to Von: 'A Vision of Peace and Safety'