There’s an old argument that guns make us safer because law abiding citizens can use them to stop crimes. It’s a hard argument to refute, even with the data on your side, because most of us watch movies and television shows where people with guns stop other people with guns. The reality is that it’s difficult to stop someone with a gun, even if you have a gun. That’s why the news today is telling us about a U.S. army major who shot 46 people, killing 13 of them, on an army base in Texas. There are plenty of guns on army bases and plenty of people who are well trained to use them, but that wasn’t enough to stop this tragedy.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0794c.asp
I stumbled across your blog while searching to see whether your blog title has been used already – thus my reason for being here.
This post caught my eye, and so I thought that, before I leave, I would comment.
I would contend that the argument, as you have stated it, is in fact a “straw man.” In reading the two articles you linked to, I would understand the thrust of their argument(s) is not in fact that “guns make us safer because law abiding citizens can use them to stop crimes,” but is instead more along the lines of “an armed society is a polite society (Robert A. Heinlein).” In other words, what matters is not (A) that it is difficult to stop a firearm-wielding attacker with another firearm, or (B) that it took longer than was desirable to stop the attack in question (by the way – I’m not sure, generally speaking, that service people on U.S. army bases have immediate access to firearms, even if they are well trained to use them). What does matter, and what I would contend the real crux of the argument to be, is that (A) when citizens of country own firearms, they acknowledge by this ownership their willingness and responsibility to respond decisively and effectively to a threat to their (family’s, country’s, etc.) safety, and that (B) a society that has this common understanding is more likely to be a safe society.
Regards,
-Brendan
Brendan, thanks for commenting and for pointing out that U.S. military personnel do not necessarily have easy access to firearms. The more I read about what happened in Texas, the more I realized that this was exactly the case there, making my argument incorrect.
I think that I also understand your point about the straw man, but I don’t agree that there is a substantial difference between the two arguments in practice. Suppose that, as you say:
“(A) when citizens of a country own firearms, they acknowledge by this ownership their willingness and responsibility to respond decisively and effectively to a threat to their (family’s, country’s, etc.) safety, and that (B) a society that has this common understanding is more likely to be a safe society.”
The problem is that if those who commit violent crimes are not stopped by citizens with firearms, then the common understanding that citizens will respond decisively and effectively to threats disappears.
My version of the argument may have been much more specific than the general argument, but the general argument requires the more specific version to hold. Both of them are arguments about deterrence, and when the deterrent is shown to be ineffective, both arguments crumble.
Have I correctly understood your point or am I still missing something?
I disagree that the specific version must apply. We must accept that random acts of violence will occur in a free society.
Lukas, do you have any reasons for disagreeing?
As far as accepting that random acts of violence will occur, I agree that some will occur, but our society has quite a bit of control over how frequently they occur and how bad they will be. You need look no further than the long term decline in violent crime to see evidence of this.
I disagree with “but the general argument requires the more specific version to hold” because there will always be random acts of violence breaking the specific version argument. And you’re correct, I don’t have data to back the argument, but I still agree with Brendan.
But the random acts don’t break the specific version, unless armed citizens don’t stop them. And that second part is not random.