In John Locke’s post “Of Open Carry Rights,” he argues that, while ownership of guns is a private issue and therefore outside the realm of public discourse, the display of dangerous weapons out in the open automatically makes them a point of public interest, and thus arguable in the public sphere. From this point, Locke makes clear that open carry should be restricted because it violates others’ right to life by impeding upon their sense of security. While certainly he’s right that open carry should be restricted because exposure of weapons is an unnecessary incitement to violence, the rhetoric Locke uses to reach this conclusion is faulty because his initial argument lends itself to slippery slope. I refute the argument Locke makes in place of another one that rests on more solid ground.
Locke’s his argument begins with an explanation that the right to own guns, as secured in the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, is an extension of man’s god-given right to life. As he states in “Liberalism,” people must keep “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In essence: because the government sometimes fails to do its job sufficiently, we must be able to overthrow it—in order to do this, we must be able to arm ourselves. This logic may have been acceptable in a time when man was scattered across the country, when society lacked a practical and reliable infrastructure to ensure the safety of its citizens. However, it is no longer acceptable because we have a steady system of law enforcement in addition to a number of checks upon government (through its multiple branches and through the press). In the modern age, improved communication and delegations of resources has taken the place of much of the need for strong individuals. Due to the interconnectedness of men, I argue that private ownership of guns is no longer a private issue.
As demonstrated in the past few years in the case of the Aurora, Colorado shooting, the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, and more recently the concert shooting in Las Vegas, current gun laws are not sufficiently protecting the rights to life of public. It’s evident that the ideology of protecting individual rights as a solution to protect the rights of all is not working. When it comes at the small sacrifice of unregulated gun ownership, protecting these rights are certainly tantamount to individual liberties. To go about ensuring these collective freedoms, I believe that any private ownership of guns should be thoroughly regulated by the government (and perhaps restricted) because the country’s lax stance on guns has obviously not been sufficient to prevent the deaths of over one thousand people due to mass shootings alone.
If we’re to accept the idea that gun ownership is an extension of the right to life in the first place, we’re placing an unfeasible level of accountability at the level of each individual. Even if this necessitates restrictions of the ‘natural’ right to life on the individual level, the collective freedom of the public will be increased, and consequently society will be all the free. This pragmatism may involve some sacrifices, but they’re certainly fewer than those necessitated by Locke’s unwillingness to put his arguments into context. In fact, Locke defies his own logic by conceding that open is false, while still championing the right of gun ownership. The simple fact of the matter is that guns cannot be an extension of the right to life because impede on others’ life to right in the first place.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/