Australia could very well have a dictator sometime within the next couple hundred years, but if that happens, I believe it will be because Australia failed to address the warning signs listed in my prior post. Gun control laws would be a side note, not a major reason for the downfall of their freedom.
Drawing a straight line between a country’s freedom and its guns is a one-dimensional approach. It is true that we have a high level of freedom here in the U.S., and it is also true that a lot of people own firearms in our nation. In fact, in a comparison of the rate of private gun ownership in 179 countries across the globe, the United States ranked #1 (A).
However, in that same study, Yemen’s rate of private gun ownership ranked #2 (B), Saudi Arabia ranked #7 (C), and Iraq ranked #8 (D). Are these countries less likely to have a dictator at some point in the next couple hundred years than Australia?
I’d also like to clarify what I meant when I wrote, “a gun that is incapable of inflicting bodily damage or death has lost all of its intrinsic value.”
This statement was not meant to suggest that guns don’t provide any benefit beyond inflicting death, or that gun owners are violent people overtaken by their own unrelenting blood-lust.
The “intrinsic” value of an item is the fundamental benefit that the object provides because it is what it is – it’s the function for which it was designed. I argued that any comparison of a gun to a refrigerator, a baseball bat, or an automobile is misleading – those items can be used (or misused) as weapons, but the intrinsic value of those items is unrelated to their lethality.
An object can have value in addition to and beyond its intrinsic value. For example, my guitar is an Epiphone Dot Archtop, which sells for $400. However, its value to me is much greater because it was a gift, and I have used it for a long time and am now very attached to it. In spite of its relatively low dollar value, I intend to keep my guitar until the day I die.
An object can have value in spite of the fact that it has lost most or all of its intrinsic value. For example, the intrinsic value of a book is in its ability to be read, but some books that are several hundred years old are worth over $100,000, and you wouldn’t want to flip through those books for fear of damaging them. They are valued as rare artifacts, not as books.
A gun can also be valued as a gift, a family inheritance, an antique, or a rare artifact. Like a frisbee, or a fishing rod, a gun can also because it’s fun to use with family and friends, and gives us an excuse to enjoy the outdoors. But the intrinsic value of a firearm is that it enables its user to injure or kill with ease. This is the basic characteristic that separates a gun from a guitar, or a rare book. This is the reason a person opts to spend $450 on a Glock instead of $2 on a frisbee, or $35 on a fishing rod.
Alright, I've refrained from any comments on this thread, not because I don't find it interesting, but because I consider my own opinions on gun control to be unsettled (I'm not altogether certain where I stand on this issue). Today, however, I read the following Christian Science Monitor article and found it interesting. It's more specifically focused on the concealed carry question. I felt it came down more on the pro-gun side of the issue, but it was clearly going for at least an appearance of balance on the issue.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0311/Gun-nation-Inside-America-s-gun-carry-culture
Of course an argument against concealed weapon's permits could be made using this article.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/14/tagblogsfindlawcom2012-blotter-idUS120181229520120314