The point I was making goes to question of rights and equality within the community overall. How is the ‘common good’ served by laws. When the government determines policy, it should consider how the goal of that policy affects each individual persons rights and safety. Rich, poor, strong, weak, healthy, sickly.
The current gun laws *do *attempt to balance rights with safety though, as for example curtailing weapons rights for citizens with criminal histories. If one owns a gun and uses it responsibly, the public’s safety is not endangered. That person retains his right because he has given no reason for it to be revoked. The weak and the sickly also have the right to bear arms. The poor have that right as well; that is, the right to *bear *arms – not the right to be *given *one in the event they don’t have the money to pay for it.
Say we are speaking health care. The ideal would be to have a system that gives all people access to health care if they need it. Health care is a basic human right. We don’t say to people only those who are responsible with their health should have access to healthcare. We recognise that there are many conditions genetic (and self imposed within reason) that are worthy of treating regardless of the a persons private capacities.
Only in the opinion of some is healthcare a basic human right. Unlike gun ownership, healthcare is a service, and the idea that someone is entitled to another person’s labor without paying for it is quite a debatable subject; hence, the uproar over Obamacare. I understand you may be theorizing about universal rights in abstract terms, but this analogy doesn’t align with the subject of protection of life. Guns protect the life of the individual from an external threat; healthcare prolongs the life of the individual who is ill.
The right to bear arms is granted to American citizens because it affords people the opportunity to defend their lives and property - at their own expense and to their own capabilities. Everyone has the right to preserve their lives in ways that do not infringe upon the rights of others and do not take from others. For some people, self-protection might entail installing a security system in their homes or cars. For others, it may mean getting a really big dog. And for others, it means possessing a gun.
If you think about it, your argument that *everyone *– rich or poor – deserves equal access to gun ownership would no longer hold up if the laws meant to restrict the ownership of civilians were enacted while the very same politicians who wrote those laws walked around with armed bodyguards. That, in essence, would be an affirmation that the safety of public officials is paramount to those of us who don’t have such prestigious government jobs.
Likewise, personal safety. Everyone should have equal access to means for safety within governmental policy. If you are saying put a gun into the hands of qualifying people in order that they can feel and be safe, but let those who don’t qualify take care of themselves, that is a fundamentally unfair system.
Again, every adult *does *qualify for gun ownership, barring contingencies. It’s people who have already harmed others run that the risk of having this access taken away. And justly so.
It means far more guns in the community to be turned on innocent people making far greater danger for the weak and vulnerable than if no one was allowed guns. It is a fact that can’t be denied that more guns means more violent gun crimes by virtue of the availability of guns. The strong get stronger the weak get weaker by such a philosophy.
I have to resurrect the counter-argument that is always brought up, and yet which is seldom addressed by the gun control crowd: Criminals who want to use guns will get their hands on them regardless of whether they have allowance. Revoking the right for the “weak” - AKA: responsible and law-abiding - to own a gun is what deliberately creates an environment in which the lawless run amok and the innocent have no comparative method with which to defend themselves.
Why should we tourists be vulnerable to your criminals with guns? * You *are safe walking down the street with your concealed weapons but what about the tourists who are left to throw their luggage at the gunman or die? Fair. Not at all.
Tourists shouldn’t be vulnerable – that’s why I usually tell them to stay away from dangerous neighborhoods when they are visiting. The U.S. government’s duty is not to extend all rights to foreign nationals, regardless of how unfair it might seem.
Mind you if I did come to the US, I’d bring a ‘that’s not a knife.
This is a knife’ with me.
I would literally pay to see that. Extra points if you threaten a would-be offender while wearing a crocodile tooth-studded hat!
