Two dumb arguments about gun control

This year, 706 people in our country have been killed in mass shootings and we’ve had about 18,457 homicides committed with guns. The fact that there is debate about whether to arm school teachers should be enough indication that gun crime is a significant problem in America. In the spirit of trying to move the conversation forward, I’d like to talk a bit about two bad arguments that get thrown around in gun rights discussions. The hope is that dismissing some of the bad arguments will get the wider discussion on the right track.

The first is often put forth by the gun control crowd and the second by the gun rights crowd.

The first argument is often a response to the gun rights argument that we need the Second Amendment so that we can protect ourselves against the government just in case it takes a tyrannical bend or it enacts some unacceptable policy.

Pro-gun control advocates often respond to this with disbelief: The U.S. military has tanks, fighter jets, guided missiles and well-armed infantry. How can someone think that they would be able to put up a fight against the most powerful military in the history of the world with a few AR-15s? Apart from this it just seems extremely unlikely that the government would turn the military on its own citizens.

Whether or not we should actually preserve the right to bear arms for the sake of protecting ourselves against a tyrannical government, this sort of response is uncharitable to gun rights advocates. It’s not like an armed citizen’s rebellion would involve formations of pot-bellied uncles charging Abrams tanks in a large field.

Such an asymmetric rebellion would almost certainly take the form of unconventional, urban guerrilla warfare. We saw in Afghanistan and Vietnam that such tactics can be highly effective against military powerhouses like the U.S. and even more so in a domestic conflict where the military would be significantly limited in how it can respond by virtue of its conducting operations in its own territory and against its own citizens.

The aim would not be to defeat the military in battle. It would be to become enough of a nuisance, and garner enough popular support to force concessions or deter government actions in the first place. Still, it’s unclear whether the possibility of citizens forcefully extracting concessions from the government is a good reason to fully preserve the right to bear arms, particularly considering how this may be outweighed by the high number of crimes committed with guns in the U.S. when compared to other developed nations.

Which brings us to the second argument I’d like to address: “Gun control infringes on our Second Amendment right to bear arms.” You hear this a lot but I’m not sure what the argument is supposed to be. Is it that the Constitution should never be changed? The Constitution delineates a process for amending itself for a reason and everyone can agree that there are at least some laws that we should change.

Perhaps the idea is that the Constitution lists a set of rights that themselves should clearly never be violated because of their own individual plausibility as fundamentally necessary rights.

For example, consider this analogous argument: “The government should not ban curse words because it would infringe on our First Amendment right to free speech.” The strength of this argument rests on the prima facie plausibility that the right to free speech is fundamental to a just society. Does the Second Amendment enjoy this sort of prima facie motivation?

If it has some initial plausibility as a good right to have, it’s certainly not as strong as the plausibility of the First Amendment. In other words, on the face of it, the First Amendment appears to be a much stronger candidate for being an absolutely necessary fundamental right. The First Amendment also does not suffer from as many countervailing negative social consequences as the Second Amendment.

Therefore, it is not enough to simply claim that gun control is impermissible because it would infringe on a right. Gun rights advocates must provide reasons to think that the social good of protecting gun rights is not outweighed by all of the negative externalities the right produces.

There are of course many other arguments within the gun-rights debate that I did not consider here. Yet, given the significant rates of gun violence in America, it is as pressing as ever to clear the landscape so that we can have a more productive conversation.

Rafael Perez is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.