Pro-Gun Absolutism: The Gun Lobby’s Push to Privatize Law and Order

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. A piece of infantile silliness masquerading as thooughtful opinion piece.

There is so much wrong with it simply in terms of writing skills -- or, rather, lack thereof -- that I will start by noting that the writer relies on adjectives and pejoratives in such overabundance that the article doesn't even make for a good polemic; it's just a rant by someone straining to sound intellectual.

Let's look at just the merest sliver of this silliness: the Max Weber citation.

First, Weber was being descriptive, not prescriptive. He was making an observation. If two or more parties are contending for the sole ability to exert violence within a given community then there is war, whether between powers foreign contesting each other or factions within the civil body.

But that's nothing more than a definition. To mistake -- or perhaps more accurately, misrepresent -- that as a moral unction is ridiculous. Thomas Paine made similar observations in more prosaic terms when he noted that government, like dress, was the badge of innocence lost; a necessary evil in the best of times but too often an intolerable one.

Second, even though the definition may be essentially true that is not the same as saying it is desirable. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were making similar observations all the while making the argument that the state should not be granted a monopoly on power.

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 to 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

-- The Declaration of Independence

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

-- James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 51

To them the government only gained it's authority to exert violence because the people licensed it to do so on their behalf. However, the governed were the only ones who could rightfully consent to such exertion and as such they retained the right to revoke that authority and the power to make good their revocation (or, more importantly, the power to deter any situation that might provoke a forfeiture of authority).

Third, this is nothing more than an appeal to authoritarianism at the expense of the individual. Supposedly, the state serves the people rather than the people serving the state. People defending themselves from violent attackers is not vigilantism. No one is legally or morally obligated to allow themselves to be beaten, raped, robbed and/or murdered until such time as the police deign to arrive on scene. If that is the definition of the author's properly ordered state then the author does not deserve the power of a state nor does the author deserve a moment's peace.

But let's examine what happens when a person does employ lethal force to defend themselves.

* The police arrive and collect physical evidence and witness statements
* The evidence is forwarded for review by the prosecutor's office
* If the prosecutor believes charges are warranted then the citizen is brought to trial
* A trial with opposing council, rules of evidence, a judge and -- most importantly -- a jury of peers convenes to examine the evidence and circumstances in order to render a verdict

All of these actions and elements are things outside of the citizen who defended herself or himself. The same cannot be said of the state. The investigators, prosecutors and judges are all members of the state and the state seldom acts in opposition to itself but is always -- by the habits of its very nature -- acting in opposition to the citizenry.

Case in point, how many innocent people have been terrorized, if not outright killed, by police exerting force in the name of the law only to learn they were mistaken in matters of fact or arrived at the wrong address? Yet, despite the news being littered with several such stories each year for the last several years none of the responsible parties are being held to account. Yet, if an armed citizen were to burst into another citizen's domicile seeking recompense for some slight, perhaps even one that reached levels of criminality that citizen would feel the full wrath of the law. The state does indeed enjoy a monopoly and they are using that fact to escape justice for their moments of gross incompetence.

Fourth, how does the author extol the virtue of a monopoly in one party and then condemn absolutism in another; particularly with regards to the state and the people. If ever we should err in one direction or the other it should be in the favor and advantage of the people over the state. Yet, the author would have use believe the absolutism of the state is the highest virtue.

It is as intolerable as it is hypocritical.

Fifth, even if the argument were to be made that the definition is correct and the monopoly of violence were desirable we would then be compelled to ask why do we care about Weber? He is, after all, just one German social scientist. He is not a prophet and I doubt he would present himself as one. Bottom line: the author is simply name-dropping in an attempt to sound erudite and well-read to an audience that is presumptively less so.

From there the article heads down hill in a rather predictable fashion.

I give it a C-