This essay, by Oxford graduate student C’zar Bernstein, is one of the six shortlisted essays in the graduate category of the inaugural Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics.

Arguing About Guns

In this paper, I’ll argue, first, that people have a prima facie right to own guns. Second, that it is far more controversial than people usually suppose that gun ownership does more harm than good, given the extant criminological evidence.

Rights are trumps that are supposed to hold in the face of negative consequences.[1] Prima facie rights are rights that admit to being outweighed by countervailing considerations. However, because rights are supposed to trump negative consequences, one cannot merely point out that there are negative consequences as a reason to suppose that the right is overridden. She must establish that the negative consequences outweigh the trump-value of the right. Thus, if there is a prima facie right to own guns, anti-gun philosophers must show (i) that gun ownership does more harm than good, and (ii) that the negative consequences are sufficient to override the right to own guns. I’ll argue that there is a lot of good evidence to doubt that (i) is true. I shan’t, however, argue that (i) is probably false, which would require a much more extensive examination of the evidence.

Why should we suppose that there is a prima facie right to own guns?[2] Some philosophers argue that the right to own a gun is grounded in the right of self-defence.[3] The argument goes like this. The right of self-defence entails the right to be allowed to have access to reasonable means of individual self-defence, and because firearms are a particularly effective reasonable means of self-defence, people have a prima facie right to own guns. More details will have to be filled in, but this is the basic idea. The argument is bolstered by empirical evidence, according to which defensive gun use (DGU) is very common and effective in the US. Kleck and Gertz (1995) found that there were an estimated 2.5 million DGUs in 1992 (which is far more common than criminal gun use). With respect to effectiveness, Kleck (2001: 289) found that only 3.6 percent of victims who took self-protection action with a gun were injured after they tried to defend themselves, compared to 15 percent who tried to reason with the offender, 8.6 percent who attacked the offender without a weapon, and 55 percent who took no self-protection actions whatever. According to Lott (2010: 3), ‘95 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack.’ If this is close to being accurate, it would imply that guns used by victims are not only safe for victims, but also for their attackers!

Consider now the argument from liberty. People have a right to be allowed to own x (where x is an artefact or tool) if owning x is not intrinsically immoral and there are no overriding contingent reasons for prohibiting the owning of x. In other words, there is a defeasible presumption in favour of liberty. I should then say that the ownership of guns is not intrinsically immoral. Consider the following two cases as evidence for this premise.

Case A: Country X has been conquered by a brutal and oppressive enemy, Y. Mary, a citizen of X, obtains a gun and joins a group of partisans who are able to effectively resist Y’s occupation. Mary, therefore, owns a gun. But Mary hasn’t acted wrongly.

Case B: Country X suffers from an enormously high violent crime rate such that, for any given person, there’s a significant probability that that person will be a victim of a violent crime. The government of X is not able to effectively fulfil its obligation to protect its citizens. Jack, in order to protect his family, obtains a gun. Jack, therefore, owns a gun. But Jack hasn’t acted wrongly.

It’s plausible that these cases are ones in which gun ownership is not wrong at all. Mary is praiseworthy for resisting the occupation with her gun. Similarly, Jack fulfilled his obligation to protect his family by obtaining a gun for their defence. If my verdict about these cases is correct, then gun ownership isn’t intrinsically immoral. Consequently, people have a right to be allowed to own guns if there aren’t overriding contingent reasons for prohibition. This just is a prima facie right to be allowed to own guns.

This is a weak conclusion. It could be that this right is overridden by the harms associated with gun ownership. There are two main arguments for gun prohibition. First, common gun ownership contributes significantly to rates of violent crime (especially rape and murder). Second, common gun ownership contributes significantly to rates of suicide. The idea is that if guns were to be banned, we’d expect to see crime and suicide rates fall. These are empirical claims that must be settled according to the scientific evidence. For lack of space, I’ll address only the first of these claims.

It’s very controversial that the prevalence of guns in a population significantly increases crime, or that bans significantly decrease crime. Kovandzic et al. (2013), for example, found that increases in noncriminal gun prevalence would moderately decrease both gun and total homicide rates. Kleck (2009; 2014:8) reports that of 36 studies on this question, only 11 ‘controlled for more than three control variables that had a statistically significant association with crime rates.’ Studies to which anti-gun philosophers have appealed were among those that controlled for none of these variables.[4] Only three studies controlled for more than six and all of them found that there are no significant effects of gun levels on violent crime (the Kovandzic study controlled for ten). In other words, the qualitatively best studies on this question have found either that there is a slight crime-decreasing effect or no discernible effect whatever.

There is also evidence that concealed carry laws (laws that allow civilians to carry guns concealed in public) cause reductions in violent crimes. Lott and Mustard (1997) found that these laws reduced murders and rapes by eight and five percent respectively. These findings have been independently confirmed. For example, Plassman and Whitley (2003), Moody et al. (2013), Moody et al. (2014), and Gius (2014) all found that these laws contribute to reductions in violent crime (including murder and rape). Of the peer-reviewed scientific studies on this question, ‘twenty…found right-to-carry laws reduced violent crime; eleven indicated no discernible effect. But absolutely none found that concealed-carry laws increase murder, rape, or robbery rates.’[5]

If this is correct, the best explanation is that criminals are deterred from committing crimes in places where civilians are able to carry guns, for criminals are not able to know in advance which of their potential victims will be carrying. There is independent evidence of a deterrent effect. According to one survey of state prisoners, 34 percent reported being scared off or wounded by an armed victim and 40 percent decided not to commit a crime because they believed the victim was armed.[6] Consider also so-called ‘hot’ burglary rates (burglaries that take place whilst the victim is at home). In Britain, about half of all burglaries are hot, compared to just 13 percent in the US.[7] This is exactly what we’d expect if the deterrence hypothesis were true: it’s riskier for criminals to invade a home in the US, whereas in Britain they can do so with relative impunity.

Consider European countries. Guns were banned in the UK in 1997. From 1984 to 1997, the average yearly number of homicides in England and Wales was 11.4 per million. This increased by 17.5 percent to 13.4 from 1998 to 2011.[8] From 1998 to 2005, gun crime soared by 340 percent.[9] Moreover, Kates and Mauser (2007) found no evidence that gun prevalence contributes significantly to violent crime. Norway has the highest gun ownership rate in Western Europe (32 percent), but also its lowest murder rate. Denmark has half the gun ownership rate of Norway, but has a 50 percent higher murder rate. Sweden has more than double the gun ownership rate as Germany but 25 percent less murder overall.[10] Anti-gun advocates typically point out that many European countries have lower murder rates than the US. This is quite true and quite irrelevant. There are many likely confounding factors not taken into account when one compares relatively peaceful European countries to the US.[11] These countries had lower crime rates before they passed their gun laws, so the fact that they still have lower rates is uninteresting. When one compares similar countries, the countries with higher gun rates often have lower crime rates.

Earlier I argued that there is a prima facie right to own guns. Given the above evidence, perhaps a reasonable case can be made for the proposition that the right to own guns is undefeated. But that would require a much more extensive examination of the evidence for both sides. What I hope to have done here is to cast doubt on the claim that gun ownership does more harm than good. Because the question of net social harms is an empirical question, we shouldn’t allow our justified contempt of highly publicised gun crimes to cloud our judgments about whether or not gun ownership ought to be prohibited. We should to come to a conclusion only after an impartial examination of the scientific evidence. Unfortunately, many fail to do this.

References

Dixon, N. (2011). “Handguns, Philosophers, and the Right to Self-Defense.” International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25(2).

Dworkin, R. (1984). ‘Rights as Trumps’ in J. Waldron, Theories of Rights (Oxford University Press).

Gius, M. (2014). “An Examination of the Effects of Concealed Weapons Laws and Assault Weapons Bans on State-level Murder Rates.” Applied Economics Letters 21(4).

Hemenway, D. and Miller, M. (2001). ‘Firearm Availability and Homicide Rates Across 26 High-Income Countries.’ The Journal of Trauma, 49(6).

Kates, D. and Mauser, G. (2007). “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 30(2).

Killias, M. (1993). ‘Gun ownership, suicide, and homicide’ in Understanding Crime: Experiences of Crime and Crime Control. Frate, A. et al. (eds.). (Rome: UNICRI).

Killias, M. et al. (2001). ‘Guns, Violent Crime, and Suicide in 21 Countries.’ Canadian Journal of Criminology, 43(4).

Kleck, G. and Gertz, M. (1995). ‘Armed Resistance to Crime.’ Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 86(1).

Kleck, G. (2001). Armed. (New York: Prometheus Books).

Kovandzic, T. et al. (2013). “Estimating the Causal Effect of Gun Prevalence on Homicide Rates.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 29(4).

Lott, J. and Mustard, D. (1997). “Crime, deterrence, and the right-to-carry concealed handguns.’ The Journal of Legal Studies, 26.

Lott, J. (1997). “Does Allowing Law-Abiding Citizens to Carry Concealed Handguns Save Lives?” Valparaiso University Law Review, 31(2).

Lott, J. (2010). More Guns, Less Crime. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press).

Lott, J. (2012). ‘What a balancing test will show for right-to-carry laws.’ Maryland Law Review, 71.

Lott, J. (2014). “Research shows crime goes down with concealed-carry.” Columbus Dispatch. <http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/05/03/1-research-shows-crime-goes-down-with-concealed-carry.html>

Moody, C. et al. (2013). ‘Did John Lott provide bad data to the NRC?’ Econ Journal Watch, 10(1).

Moody, C. et al. (2014). ‘The impact of right-to-carry laws on crime.’ Review of Economics and Finance, 4.

Plassman, F. and Whitley, J. (2003). “Confirming ‘More Guns, Less Crime.” Stanford Law Review, 55.

Rossi, P. H.. and Wright, J. (1986). Armed and Considered Dangerous (New York: Aldine Transaction).

[1] See Dworkin (1984).

[2] By ‘ownership’ I mean possession.

[3] I defend this in [suppressed].

[4] See Dixon (2011) who cites, e.g. Killias (1993), Killias et al. (2001), and Hemenway and Miller (2000).

[5] See Lott (2014). For a survey of the literature, see Lott (2012).

[6] Rossi and Wright (1986).

[7] See Lott (1997: 356).

[8] Smith et al. (2012: 31-32)

[9] Lott (2010: 316).

[10] Kates and Mauser (2007: 687-688).

[11] Presumably anti-gun advocates would not be impressed with the fact that former Soviet countries (including Russia) have enormously higher murder rates than the US despite their strict gun laws.