Do Guns Make Us Free?: Democracy and the Armed Society
Language: English
Pages: 296
ISBN: 0300208936
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Possibly the most emotionally charged debate taking place in the United States today centers on the Second Amendment to the Constitution and the rights of citizens to bear arms. In the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut, the gun rights movement, headed by the National Rifle Association, appears more intractable than ever in its fight against gun control laws. The core argument of Second Amendment advocates is that the proliferation of firearms is essential to maintaining freedom in America, providing private citizens with a defense against possible government tyranny, and thus safeguarding all our other rights. But is this argument valid? Do guns indeed make us free?
In this insightful and eye-opening analysis, the first philosophical examination of every aspect of the contentious and uniquely American debate over guns, Firmin DeBrabander examines the claims offered in favor of unchecked gun ownership. By exposing the contradictions and misinterpretations inherent in the case presented by gun rights supporters, this provocative volume demonstrates that an armed society is not a free society but one that actively hinders democratic participation.
compromises our natural and God-given freedom. Guns—in the hands of private citizens—are thus necessary to ensure that the people’s consent to be governed is ongoing. The adulation gun rights supporters accord Locke is mistaken on several accounts. Cooke suggests that Locke inspired the Founding Fathers to give the police and armed forces an “auxiliary role” in maintaining peace and order, so that government might not enjoy a “monopoly on legal violence.” Auxiliary to whom? Whose work shall
most perfectly, Foucault argues, in the prison design put forth by the eighteenth-century philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham, dubbed the Panopticon: prisoners are held individually in transparent cells arrayed around a central watchtower, which would be shaded so the watchmen could see out without being seen themselves. The panoptic scheme exemplifies the features of disciplinary power. Authority is anonymous, unverifiable, invisible. It is automatic and enduring, because the
elect must be chastened, their ambitions contained. Guns bolster the people’s democratic confidence and are a reminder of our revolutionary power, and destiny. Further, Kopel declares, guns distinguish the particularly American brand of democracy, the most enduring of modern democracies and the inspiration and advocate for emerging democracies around the world. The archetypal heroes of various nations, he argues, are highly indicative: The armed Canadian hero is a government employee (the
“Each ward would thus be a small republic within itself,” he writes in a letter to John Cartwright some years later, “and every man in the State would thus become an acting member of the common government. … The wit of man cannot devise a more solid basis for a free, durable and well-administered republic.”88 According to Arendt, Jefferson’s plan would perform two essential services. First, it offers us that space to be political beings, as is our elemental yearning, and the necessary condition
Your Ground considerations in issuing their verdict—which was “not guilty.” 52. Susan Ferriss, “NRA Pushed ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws across the Nation,” Center for Public Integrity, March 26, 2012, http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/26/8508/nra-pushed-stand-your-ground-laws-across-nation. 53. Wayne LaPierre, interview with Fox News, June 12, 2012,