Thank you to those who have recently left posts. I appreciate your feedback. It’s pushing me to think harder about these issues.
One of my friend’s professors at the local community college recently said he likes to think about rights in a hierarchy. He said, “I like to ask myself, ‘is my right to carry a gun greater than someone else’s right to life?” Of course, his answer is “no,” but this question is a logical fallacy, and it points out one of the key problems with today’s debate over gun rights. To show the logical fallacy one must simply ask the question of automobiles. “Is my right to move freely about the country greater than my potential vehicular- accident victim’s right to life?” Statistically many more people in the United States die by car accident than by any other means, according to Bureau of Transportation Statistics http://www.bts.gov/publications/pocket_guide_to_transportation/2007/pdf/entire.pdf
in 2004 there were 40,342 deaths in passenger cars, light trucks, pedestrians struck by vehicles, and motorcyclists. This is excluding large trucks and bicyclists struck by vehicles. Also in 2004, according to statistics from the Brady Campaign website http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/pdf/firearm_facts.pdf
29,569 deaths were caused by firearms. According to the FBI website http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html there were 16,137 murders investigated by police in 2004. The Brady statistics state that 16,750 of the 2004 shooting deaths were due to murder.
Of course, these statistics don’t add up. We can assume that FBI figures are underreporting, as they only draw from police investigations rather than including information from coroner’s reports or court proceedings and that Brady Bill supporters are over reporting. However, we can clearly see that the greatest danger: 40,342 accidental deaths due to driver error is the greatest problem we face today! We must act now to limit the use of, or outright illegalize, automobiles in order to maintain a safe and just nation!
It’s a nice joke, but that’s not actually my point. When we look at the “Is my right to drive an automobile greater than someone else’s right to life” question, we can see it is just as false a statement as the question posed about guns. There isn’t a right to drive. There is only license to drive. Nowhere in the constitution is there a “right to own or operate a motor vehicle.” There is a right to keep and bear arms recorded in the constitution. There is no recorded right to self-defense in the constitution, although there is a history of laws that imply this right in all countries. Just like we apply for license to drive we also apply for license to carry a concealed firearm (the keep and ‘bear arms’ part of the second amendment). This may also be in keeping with the ‘well regulated’ part of the second amendment.
My feeling is that rights are in some ways scalable dependent upon the context. If someone has another pinned to the ground and is stabbing the person with a knife, I believe the victim’s right to defend him or herself during the attack with the best tools possible absolutely trumps any rights the attacker might have. I wish I were in my friend’s class because, if we are going to trade in logical fallacies the question I might ask, “is an attacker’s right to take my life greater than my right to defend it with the best tools available?” seems to me to be much more to the point, than the question “is my right to carry a gun greater than another’s right to life?”
Maintaining our rights, whether to freely move about the country using modern technology or to defend ourselves with the best tools possible, requires that we allow for some risk in our society. Clearly, from my perspective, our right to life is greater than an attacker’s right to take it from us, but what is our right to protect ourselves?