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Notes -
Gun Rights are Civilization Rights
I believe, if you don't trust an independent adult to have a firearm you ultimately don't trust them enough to be in the same civilization or society as you.
There are three categories of people that nearly everyone agrees should not be allowed to own a firearm:
And you'll notice we generally don't trust these categories of people with much of anything. The first two categories of people we insist on them having guardians, or being wards of the state. The third category of people we imprison.
There are two major arguments against gun rights that I think hold the most salience for people.
Argument One: Guns are Dangerous and Unnecessary
They are undoubtedly dangerous. Their purpose is to be a weapon. But there are other things that are dangerous that we don't ban. Cars can be used to achieve mass casualty events. Bombs can be made with some commonly available materials. These other things are rarely labelled as "unnecessary" though. There are also plenty of "unnecessary" things that we don't ban. Plenty of purely recreational items and services exist. Jet skis, theme parks, cruises, large houses, etc (some of these things are even dangerous). Only the most hardcore socialists and communists want to take away all the fun toys.
There is an argument that gun advocates make that gun rights are necessary to keep the government in check. I generally like this argument, and think it is demonstrated by the level of free speech rights in places like Great Britain where guns have been successfully banned for most private "citizens".
But I'll grant for the sake of argument that guns are totally "unnecessary". And that it is the special combination of Dangerous+Unnecessary that leads people to want to ban it. Since other categories of things like Safe+Unnecessary or Dangerous+Necessary go largely unbanned and untouched.
I think the widespread existence of many "Dangerous+Necessary" demonstrates that we can trust most adults to handle dangerous things in a responsible way. We can't trust them 100% of the time. And we can't trust that there won't sometimes be negligence.
The "unnecessary" component of the argument is also a scary slippery slope to be on. People have different desires and wants. There are I think two steady states of being in regards to "unnecessary" things. Either you let everyone decide for themselves on every topic. Or you have a central authority that decides on everything for everyone. If you are willing to bite that bullet, keep in mind that it will not necessarily be you deciding what is necessary and what is not. I believe it is fully possible for such a bureaucracy to mercilessly strip every single joy out of life, and they'll fully believe they are making your life better. You'll eventually be sad enough that you'll come to the second main argument against gun rights:
Argument Two: Guns enable easier suicide
I don't have the data on hand, and I don't really want to get into an argument about said data. But it is my understanding that there is a noticeable and undeniable effect of guns on male suicide rates. This makes intuitive sense to me. Many methods of suicide require you to actively torture yourself for a short time period, drowning, hanging, cutting yourself, jumping from a very tall building etc. Or they present a chance of a failed suicide attempt that leaves you heavily injured, like jumping from not high enough, or getting in front of a moving vehicle, or pills. Guns make the attempt a more sure thing, and present an option that does not involve torturing yourself.
Something about this whole approach to suicide prevention feels very wrong. On an individual basis I think you should not commit suicide, and if someone can be talked out of suicide they generally should be talked out of it. But there are also some cases where I believe it is very cruel to prevent suicide. Medical cases for sure. But there are also people who have drawn a shit straw in life in too many ways. A bit too dumb, constant low level bad health, unable to figure out how to love or be loved, etc. A life of quiet misery. They should have an exit option, and they should have one that doesn't require them to torture themselves on the way out.
Civilization is one big nebulous agreement we have that helps us get along. But I think saying "you can't leave this agreement without being tortured", is just evil.
Forbidding gun ownership means forbidding exit, and it means you lack trust in others to such a degree that it breaks down many of the assumptions we already have about the rights and responsibilities of adults in society.
Some of the implications of my argument that I am already aware of and fine with:
Some areas that I left unaddressed to save space:
The interesting question you raise is ‘where do you draw the line on figuring who is a mentally sufficient non criminal responsible adult?’
I’m guessing you don’t argue against background checks for buying a gun(is this guy currently on probation?). But what about the more in-depth ATF background check off fingerprints? What about requiring psychiatric testing? And, of course, do we require owners to have safe storage facilities so their guns don’t get stolen- people who steal them being, almost definitionally, among the categories you’ve articulated as shouldn’t own a gun.
I broadly agree that the right to keep and bear arms is pretty core to full citizenship in the west. But I don’t agree that that right is incompatible with gun control. There’s even some euro countries which seem like they qualify based off of a quick wiki scan- and some blue states with theoretically laxer gun laws which seem like they don’t.
Having laid out a slippery slope, you now understand why I argue against background checks for buying a gun. Gun rights are like speech rights; no prior restraint is reasonable, nor are special rules which impose some sort of additional burdensome responsibility for exercising the right (the equivalent for speech here is "stochastic terrorism").
Gun control by definition vitiates the right to keep and bear arms. If I have the right to keep and bear arms I don't need to ask the government permission to do so.
But you mean this in a purely legal sense, right? "shall not be infringed", etc. because it says so in the 2A and that's that.
Curious if you'd feel the same way if the amendment explicitly covered any scale of weapon, up to and including planet-ending weapons of mass destruction.
No, I mean it in a practical sense of "whether I can legally buy and carry a gun". Once you start agreeing that background checks are OK, there's no fence on that slope; the OP already got to invasive background checks and even psych exams, for crying out loud. A psych exam to exercise a right? When a lot of psychiatrists are straight-up anti-gun? That's obviously a vitiation of the right.
I mean, that's ultimately a process violation and objection though, not a fundamental one. A background check is simply a method (and the only real one?) so as to enforce an already existing, reasonable, and constitutional limit on felons or other prohibited persons owning guns.
An inability to find a pro-gun psychiatrist would of course be an objection, but one on facts and merits, not principle.
No, it is not. It is prior restraint. It is as reasonable as having the government vet political speeches beforehand to ensure they contain no calls for imminent lawless action.
I mean, it's practical for the government to police unlawful speeches after the fact insofar as they would be justified in doing so (i.e. rarely). But you only buy a gun once, and the government needs to know you bought the gun to run the check. Are you proposing letting someone buy the gun, and then doing the check? Seems obviously flawed. I'd add that of course such a check should be done in a reasonable and timely manner, or the law is invalid/illegal/wrong/not to be enforced. For similar-ish reasons, although I view the right to protest as pretty fundamental right, it's also a realm where requiring a permit is not baseline illegal to me, or trampling on any rights. There's plenty of other stuff that, while not as hallowed as a right, are still bureaucratically necessary to approve in advance instead of retrospectively, from food handler's permits to driver's licenses to becoming a schoolteacher. I will cop to supporting short (think 1-7 days) mandatory waiting periods, but wouldn't really be too sad if they weren't a thing (and wouldn't be bothered in principle by smartly implemented mandatory waiting periods for other things, either, like major medical decisions or whatnot). All of this is in a background of not being too bothered by guns themselves floating around society like they always have, and like really quite a lot of Americans (even borderline brainwashed ones if you interrogate them closely), I'm no closet abolitionist, far from it.
No, I'm proposing someone buys the gun, and if the police happen to find out the person was prohibited, they can prosecute then. No special police-state powers related to guns, any more than they get every utterance referred to them for possible prosecution (yes, the NSA wants almost that, but that's generally considered a bad thing).
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