2. As I do quite frequently, I will use my beliefs in classical liberalism to justify my position. A person’s right to do something stops when it violates the right’s of another. This assumption is necessary for rights to be equal for everyone. If this equality does not exist, then rights do not exist, only privileges. In this case, a company has owners, even corporations. To use Mark Tushnet’s analogy, the owners of a company have the right to autonomy over their property, just as one would for a house. Whether or not it would be a good policy to allow guns should depend on the situation. A logging company in which workers have to commute to an area populated with dangerous animals should allow guns. A company in a city environment may also justify guns if it is located in a high crime area. However, if crime is likely to happen on company property, then the company is also obligated to implement measures that would increase safety (no different than minimizing risk for other hazards). There definitely should be no concern about employees keeping guns on property in regards to employee-sourced violence since the employee can simply choose to ignore policy if they feel the urge to act out.
3. The NRA is wrong simply because they are misusing the Second Amendment, as they often do. The Constitution, most especially, the Bill of Rights, is intended to limit government behavior in order to maximize liberty. Employers, not including government agencies, are not part of the government and therefore are not bound by the same rules. Of course, this is assuming a society in which all interaction is voluntary. Being an employee of a company is voluntary. If they don’t like the policies, they can quit. However, society has devolved to the point were many things are not voluntary, which probably violates one or more of the other rights laid out in the Constitution. For instance, education is a lawful requirement. This leads me to answering question 4.
4. Since education is an involuntary interaction from the perspective of students, I would consider it a violation of the Second Amendment to not allow students to carry guns. The same does not apply for the teachers due to the already mentioned concept of voluntary employment. However, it would be good policy to allow teachers to carry due to the fact that the increased risk of gun violence from teachers is minimal compared to the risk of students already carrying. The presence of guns in school cannot violate a right to a safe learning environment because the right to safety does not exist within the confines of liberty. The concept of safety has such broad coverage that making it a right would inevitably violate everyone’s rights to everything. Simply leaving the house is less safe than staying home, after all. I should close this paragraph with a potential necessary clarification. I am suggesting that students have the right to bear arms in school only in the context of forced education, since the government is involved. Ideally, everything would be voluntary including school, which would make for only private schools. In such cases, just like my argument for company autonomy in #2, schools would be free to establish a ban on guns just as students could choose to boycott the school whose policies they disagree with.
8 Comments for “M8-Atwood”
hmhansen2
says:Well written post.
I agree that the NRA is abusing it’s power, and using it’s influence to push an agenda that runs counter to the realities of day to day life.
Allowing children to have guns at school calls into question a few things though. Firstly, are these children aware of the safe handling of the firearms they possess, and second, the rate of accidental discharge or the potential for a mishap could result in the maiming or death of a student. How does one justify those freedoms against those potential risks?
David
says:I can justify it by remembering that freedom is inherently unsafe. It’s why people are willing to sell it away so easily. I’m very much pro-gun, but that’s not going to cause me to make up facts in support of it like conservatives always do. If guns were completely banned, this country would be safer. Not only is there data from other countries to support this, but it also makes sense. The mantra “If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns” will only be true for a little while. The comparisons to prohibition of drugs is unfounded because unlike drugs, guns are not easily manufactured. Every illegal gun out there was at some point stolen or purchased from the legal (law-abiding) owner. If law-abiding citizens aren’t allowed to have guns, then eventually the police would seize all the illegal ones without replacements coming into the black market. Despite the fact that I can see this logic, I own 6 guns and 2 Class III items myself. 3 of them are classified as assault weapons by the standards of those states that have bans established. Why? Because freedom > safety.
Admittedly, I’m interested in seeing what happens when the 2nd Amendment is repealed (and it will eventually happen) because of all the conservatives that promise that they need their guns to rise up against a radical government. They’ve certainly shown their passiveness when it comes to the government’s continuous march towards tyranny in the last 50 years or so. It seems that so long as they get to keep their guns, they are happy, which is probably the only reason the 2nd amendment still exists. It’s to distract gun owners from the fact that they should have had a revolution long ago.
Ryan Haagenson
says:I enjoyed reading the twist between voluntary and involuntary rights. A statement you made got me thinking of who has the rights and who is actually violating them, responsible gun owners or a company. You stated,
“A person’s right to do something stops when it violates the right’s of another. This assumption is necessary for rights to be equal for everyone. If this equality does not exist, then rights do not exist, only privileges.â€
A law-abiding gun owner that has good moral values is no threat and does not restrict the rights of anyone. The only time these responsible gun owners restrict anyone’s rights is in self-defense, while protecting their own rights or the rights of someone else. Since responsible gun owners don’t restrict the rights of anyone except in self-defense and the rights are equal among all responsible gun owners then no one should be able to restrict these rights. Companies are violating responsible gun owner’s rights without cause in hopes to target criminals that could cause harm; these criminals don’t listen to laws, moral or legal. This further restricts a responsible gun owner’s rights to self-defense, by taking their protection. This puts criminals at an unfair advantage, allowing the fox to watch the hen house. I think the NRA is looking at the rights of responsible gun owners being further restricted to a point that the only place a responsible gun owner can protect themselves or others is at their own residence. Turning responsible gun owners into criminals will give the opposing side more power to fuel their agenda, to slowly erode responsible gun owner’s rights to the point they don’t exist. If some companies choose to restrict responsible gun owner’s rights, creating inequality, they don’t have a right to do so at all, only privileges. Companies don’t have a right because responsible gun owners never violated the company’s rights.
David
says:Ryan, you might be misinterpreting what I wrote. I was not implying that gun owners violate the rights of others through murder. I was implying that government violates the rights of others because of a made-up concept of protecting the rights of another group. In this case, if gun lobbyists were to get the government to force businesses to allow guns on their property then they are violating their property rights. That is what I meant by the quote you took from my original post. The 2nd Amendment stops when it encroaches on the 5th and 10th. Respectively, those are the Amendments that protect property rights and establish that the government has no power outside of what is allowed in the Constitution.
I liken it to the same crying I’ve seen in the comments section of online news in response to some big retailers raising the age to buy firearms to 21. This was done by Walmart, Kroger, and others in response to the recent shooting. Conservatives will cling to the only piece of the Constitution they care about and actually ask others in the comments section of these news articles if there’s a case to be made for getting the government to force companies to reverse their decisions, forgetting that they were pro-business rights when that bakery in Oregon refused to sell to a gay couple.
David
says:Also, see my post above in regards to criminals having guns. State-by-state prohibition doesn’t work because of how easy it is to transport guns from a legal area to a prohibited area. A ban on the federal level, however, would eventually have an effect on the criminal use of guns.
Check this out.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-couple-arrested-arsenal-massachusetts-man-claims-secret/story?id=54047667
The intentions of this couple aren’t actually known. To me, this screams black market. I’ll bet that most of this arsenal was legally purchased in Texas and transported to Massachusetts for illegal sale.
Ryan Haagenson
says:Thanks for the clarification. I understand your position, I had to read it again. It would be hard to get rid of the all the guns with today’s and future technology, metal 3D printing can manufacture guns fast. I’m sure these ghost guns would flood into the US to meet the demand.
This 3D printed 1911 shot 1000 rounds.
https://www.stratasysdirect.com/technologies/direct-metal-laser-sintering/worlds-first-3d-printed-metal-gun
David
says:Hopefully, the quality of this process improves enough to match the reliability of traditional manufacturing. I’m going to need a way to get replacement parts once firearms are banned.
tpstickel
says:Good debates and discussion. Excellent points and research. There is no easy answer.