I Changed My Stance On Guns, Here Is Why
Someone on Medium changed my position on gun control!
About a week ago, I wrote an article detailing why I do not think that a recent shooting is a valid platform for hatred and prejudice. In the article, I also expressed that my position on guns was a bit different from most liberals’, and even more-so other leftists. This belief was that guns should not bse illegalized. I had a few main points to this effect.
Firstly, anytime something is illegalized, it becomes illegal contraband. Illegal contraband then becomes an item that can make criminals more money. For example, the prohibition of alcohol in the United States gave way to organized crime in the form of the Mafia. The illegalization of drugs gave way to the rise of Narcos. These things are simple causes and effects. I am a very libertarian individual (liberty as a concept, not the far-right ideology that pretends to be liberty as a concept and stole the word libertarian from syndicalism). So for my views, I typically do not think the government should restrict things. Of course, I am a socialist libertarian, however, so this combination also means that I am entirely for government regulations of different industries… Such as the firearms industry. This was my main defense, but my broader argument was that the problem was not guns, it was culture and mental-health — as in culture that causes problems with mental health. I used Switzerland as a comparison, a country with a lot of guns but still low crime and less of these sorts of events.
I received a rebuttal to this argument in the responses. I since deleted the article because of several reasons (which I will be listing in my next article,) I do not have the response — but do not fear, I remember what it said! The first thing they pointed out is that my argument about Switzerland is a little disengenuous. The reason for this claim is that “ we cannot possibly compare these two countries with dramatically different cultures…” However, I think this portion of the response missed the point, that is exactly the feature I was claiming was the cause was the cultural differences. So it is hard to say that a difference in culture is something I did not account for as a feature when it was intentionally different a it was the feature to test. However, I still think this comparison is a little disingenuous, but not for the same reason. The real reason is because the U.S. has more guns, like A LOT more guns. More guns than people. Of course, this was still not the part of the argument that convinced me.
The next argument put forth was that guns are not trafficked in the same way as drugs. I would say this is quite an accurate claim. The majority of illegal firearms that are captured by police in the United States used to be legal firearms, they were just stolen. However, we should certainly consider that this is at least partially due to them not being illegal. It is indeed, a lot harder to transport guns — it would be a lot more difficult to get a gun then drugs, for example. So while it is possible, I do agree with this point that it is far less likely than the analogy to drugs or alcohol would imply. However, this is still not to say this is not a potential problem of illegalization. However, with everything we must weigh the risks versus the benefits, and we will get to that soon.
The final argument made was that banning guns is immediate. This was the argument that convinced me. My prior stance was my prior stance because I do not think I had considered this. In my mind, given that this is definitely a social issue that has more to do with what people’s lives are like than the guns themselves (most mass shootings are the result of bullying,) while changing our approach to mental health and certain aspects of our social system could potentially remove this problem while still retaining the weapons, this is not something that can be done overnight. This is something that could take decades, even centuries. The worst part is, we also would not see any immediate effect, so we really would not know if this is working until long after the people who initially banned the guns are gone.
When asking ourselves if something should be regulated, what we need to think about is society and the well-being of the majority. In the case of guns, does this create a better well-being for the majority of people? We could argue that some people find guns fun, and this enhances those people’s well-being. Occasionally, someone is able to defend themselves from another gun with a gun. However, we should always consider what this is weighted against; we are weighing this over a completely insane murder and crime rate alongside a serious cultural problem of mass shootings. To me, the benefit to social welfare here is far outweighed by the problems that guns present.
To support my argument, there also was some personal bias. Not because I like guns or anything, I am terrified of them — I don’t want to shoot them but I don’t really care if other people do (for recreation.) My main bias here was actually because of my interest in history; I love historical guns, not so much shooting them but I do think it would be cool to have one on display because there are numerous guns built throughout history that I find fascinating… Simply as a history fanatic. However, even to this bias there are counters, for example, why should a historical artifact be in some guy’s house instead of in a museum for the community to enjoy? While I don’t like the idea of restricting people’s rights, to me this kind of thing is always outweighed if it protects broader society. The right to own a gun is now a public-health issue, even a public-health emergency.
Thank you to the person who responded and made me think of this in a new light, I have grown a little more because of you and I am appreciative of that. Have a wonderful day, everyone!
