2018-2019 NHSEB Case 15: Gun Control

As your team considers case #15, the temptation to cite the 2nd Amendment, Supreme Court rulings, various laws and the like will be strong. Resist! Just because something is legal (or illegal) doesn’t make it moral (or immoral). You’re prepping for an ethics bowl, not a trial. So bring arguments grounded in logic, not legal precedent. But how?

While I usually discourage using the language of rights (too coarse, simplistic), I once argued that people enjoy a human right to keep and bear arms based on our basic interest in personal security combined with the state’s inability to guarantee it. People who only read that conference presentation’s title, “A Human Right to Keep and Bear Arms,” likely concluded I was a gun nut. However, those who attended learned that “arms” didn’t necessarily mean firearms, but simply defensive tools.

The argument went something like this: if humans have an interest in personal safety (and we do), and if no degree of police protection short of solitary confinement can guarantee our safety at all times (and it can’t), then so long as some people are prone to violently attack others (and they are), would-be victims will have an interest in reliable defensive tools – if nothing else, as a last resort. However, if self-defense is all we’re after, there’s little reason to think those tools have to be guns.

taser shotgun shell
Possible non-lethal solution: self-contained taser in a shotgun shell?

How about pepper sprays, or some new (even nastier, even more caustic) chemical propellant? Sprays wouldn’t work when it’s windy, or when you’re attacked in the sauna. So how about stun guns – handheld high voltage zapper thingies? Or tasers – the police officer’s go-to nonlethal tool – which shoot wire-bound probes and electrocute with the push of a button. Might these tools prove effective at fending off assailants in many circumstances?

Maybe so, but for better or worse, firearms have proven even more effective (a determined attacker might brush off a stun gun zap, but not a 12-gauge slug), can better handle multiple attackers (a taser can only subdue one assailant at a time, but a pistol can repel a dozen or more in trained hands), and are surely a more compelling deterrent. If there’s a chance I might get shocked if I assault someone, I’ll think twice. But if there’s a chance I might get killed, that’s a far more powerful reason to do something more peaceful.

At the same time, the current availability of firearms hasn’t put a stop to violent crime. In fact, in many cases guns unfortunately facilitate and amplify violent crime.

So an important question is whether guns’ heightened effectiveness at stopping and preventing violent crime outweighs the likelihood guns will be used to commit violent crime. Which leads to questions about how firearms might be regulated in ways that would retain their deterring and defensive benefits, but hinder their potential to cause harm. I’m of course considering rate-of-fire and magazine capacity restrictions. Bump stocks were recently banned because they could be easily used by novices to fire semi-auto rifles almost as quickly as fully-auto rifles (though with a severe drop off in accuracy). And some states have limited magazine capacity because while 10 or fewer shots *might* be needed to repel a home invasion, being able to fire 11 or more shots before reloading might primarily be useful to someone only interested in maximizing random innocent deaths.

This leads to another key question: whom, if anyone, should be allowed to own firearms? Everyone over 18? Over 21? Only current and ex-police? Only current and ex-military? Any citizen who’s passed a basic background check? Only those who’ve completed rigorous safety trainings and mental fitness exams? Even violent felons have a fundamental interest in personal security. But how do we balance a person’s interest in protecting themselves against their propensity for harming others?

Then there are questions of concealed carry, open carry, whether it’s legit for employers to prevent employees from keeping legally owned firearms in their personal vehicles on company property, whether citizens should be allowed to carry in establishments that sell alcohol (independent of whether they’re actually consuming alcohol).

Then there are pistol grips and folding stocks and bayonets. And inter-state transport questions, safe storage questions, and questions of civil and criminal liability. If someone steals my gun and commits a crime with it, should I be held liable? Applied ethicist Hugh LaFollette has argued yes, on grounds that this would give people very good reason to securely store their weapons. Want to really give your team an edge? Check out his argument for yourself here.

Lots of questions, none of which have quick and easy answers. Well, quick and easy answers are available, as a quick Google will show. But this is ethics bowl, where the judges aren’t interested in the NRA’s or the Brady Campaign’s talking points. They’re looking for well-thought-out views that directly address the question posed… which your team won’t know until it’s asked… But your team can (and should) develop a general position on firearms regulations which they can then mold at the bowl.

But whatever general direction your team takes the issue, make sure they appreciate, are taking into account, and are prepared to address contrary views. Single-minded hardheadedness may be rewarded in some circles, but ethics bowl is not one of them.

And if the other team brings up the 2nd Amendment, or any law, for that matter, use it as an opportunity to highlight your team’s understanding of the distinction between legality and morality. Ethics bowl is primarily concerned with the latter.

P.S. If you and/or your team finds the firearms terminology intimidating, questions welcome (I’m not an expert, but know more about guns than the average ethics professor).

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