Guns are tools used to inflict or threaten violence. Violence or the use of physical force is the most basic means of providing for one’s personal safety. Should I be denied this basic right?
Many will point to statistics and studies to suggest that guns do more damage than good, and therefore assert that the government can legitimately revoke this natural right in the name of “safety.” The standard social contract follows that in order to compensate for the loss of the right to defend one’s self, the government will provide that defense in the form of the military, CIA, state and local police, etc. I challenge this argument on the grounds of my firm and unwavering views on individual liberty and freedom, an affirmation that I thought would be more welcome on such a “liberal” and “free-spirited” campus.
I firmly believe the government never has the right to revoke
the right to choose one’s own method of self-defense, not even in the name of some illusory vision of idealism. Even worse than to remove the right to personal defense is to license it out to an elite class of professional bullies. I don’t want my freedom subsidized, arbitrarily plucked from me by some appointed council that claims for itself the privilege to apportion out rights and freedom as it chooses.
Furthermore, I don’t accept how the government creates a higher caste of minimally educated “professionals” who get to dispense of my right to defense. I’m not convinced any institutional form of forceful social control is inherently better than I am, and therefore I am convinced it is essential I am equipped with any necessary resource to defend myself and my freedoms against these controlling institutions and their sharply uniformed minions. I don’t trust the government with my freedom and I don’t trust their ministers of justice with keeping me safe.
So, on the basis of a genuine belief in freedom and distrust of authority, I’d like to remain my own authority and not concede to the government or its institutions any privileges I cannot revoke at my leisure when they misuse them.
Chris Fanshier lives in Eugene
