Rights, Regulations, and Human Dignity

When we debate the issues of gun rights and gun control, I sometimes wonder if we realize how strange the argument appears from the outside.  The idea that an “unrestricted right to gun ownership” must be maintained as a protection against government power sounds just a little over the top to contemporary ears, especially when America’s closest friends and allies place significant restrictions on gun ownership and so far have managed to avoid the descent into tyranny.  Were the consequences of this American peculiarity to be benign, we might actually smile at this historical quirk, as we do for the British who believe they aren’t really part of Europe, or for Canadians who believe that they really won the War of 1812.

But of course, the peculiarity isn’t benign.  Indeed, there can be little doubt that contemporary interpretations of the 2^nd amendment have been the cause of considerable human suffering.  Thousands of deaths could have been prevented were even the sensible restrictions put into law that Eric and Stephen describe.  Progress on these reasonable rules remains elusive however, and even after  the recent tragedies, I don’t expect any new regulations to gain traction in this election cycle.  A large part of the reason, in my view, can be placed on the American preoccupation with (and misunderstanding of) individual rights.  Let me be explicit: an “unrestricted right to gun ownership” is not a right.  In fact, any “unrestricted right” is not a right.  For rights to be genuine, for rights to be effective, for rights to be humane, for rights to be rights, they must be placed into social and political contexts—and that means regulation.

From a Christian perspective, this argument depends on the high view of human dignity that my fellow conversationalists have described.   A high view of dignity will pair rights with responsibilities, individual freedoms with the obligation to ensure that freedoms of others wil be respected.  If we believe that human dignity requires the right to bear arms, that same foundation of human dignity requires regulations to ensure that this right is appropriately related to all the other rights and responsibilities we bear.  Our debate should not be whether regulation, but only which regulation.

Once we grant that point, the position of the NRA and others in the gun lobby against regulation in principle falls apart.  Many of these arguments are slippery-slope arguments anyway, suggesting that waiting period and trigger locks will somehow lead inexorably to government agents seizing hunting rifles.  These arguments aren’t helpful—what we need instead are solid arguments that suggest how to move from high moral principle to effective policy and principled regulation.