Topic: Gun Control
Pro-Abortion And Anti-Gun-Ownership Incompatible An explanation of the relation between gun ownership and abortion that proves supporting one and opposing the other is irrational.by Steven M. Paquin
(Libertarian)
Friday, July 4, 2008
It is ridiculous that the Supreme Court had to decide on the constitutionality of hand gun ownership bans in District of Columbia v. Heller. However, it is more ridiculous that those opposed to gun ownership usually do not oppose abortion. Abortion and gun ownership both concern man's natural right to life. It is logically inconsistent to support one and oppose the other.
Both gun ownership and abortion can be defended without the Constitution. Only Truth and the objective morality that follows are necessary.
First, gun ownership is not an initiation of force. A man that purchases and owns a gun does not violate others' natural rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and property. However, if a gun owner were to shoot an innocent person, the gun owner would be initiating force. In this scenario, the government may use force against the gun owner, but the government's use of force is completely unrelated to owning a gun.
Obviously, the gun was used to initiate force, but ownership is not injuring, murdering, robbing, or threatening other men. The acts of pointing and shooting guns at innocent men are initiations of force; the act of owning guns is not. For example, if a man uses a computer to bludgeon someone to death, owning the computer is not the initiation of force, bludgeoning someone with it is.
Furthermore, since owning a gun does not initiate force, it is vicious for the government to ban guns. Enforcing a gun ban requires the government to use force against individuals for owning guns. Since gun ownership does not initiate force, the government cannot use defense force because no natural rights are being violated. Consequently, it is the government that initiates force, violating gun owners' natural rights.
This is not to say that man has a natural right to own guns, but man has a natural right to liberty, pursuit of happiness, and property. A gun owner has chosen to own a gun, he is happy owning a gun, and the gun has been purchased with his money earned through his personal labor, making the gun his and no one else's. Banning guns causes the government to violate those three natural rights, which makes the government vicious for its enforcement and contradiction of its own purpose.
Second, abortion is not an initiation of force. Abortion involves killing a fetus not a human. The difference is that man is characterized by reason, independence, and individuality. A being must have all three qualities to be man. A fetus has only one of these characteristics. It has no reason; it cannot distinguish between virtue and vice. It is not independent; it is attached to another being, relying on its host for survival. However, it is an individual; no other fetus or being is identical to it. Essentially, a fetus is a parasite that can become man. However, the potential to become man indicates that it is presently not man; therefore, it posses no natural rights. Thus, by killing a fetus no natural rights are violated, no force is initiated.
Furthermore, aborting a fetus exercises a pregnant woman's natural right to life. Actually, both aborting and birthing exercise a woman's natural right to life. In the latter case, a woman decides to utilize her life to produce another life. In the former case, she decides to stop utilizing her life to produce another.
Thus, if a woman's right to life includes the choice to use her life to reproduce or not, her right to life must also allow her to preserve her own life. Choosing to birth or abort is a woman's choice as to how she wants to use and live her life. Defending herself from an attacker is a woman's choice to preserve her own life. Obviously, a gun is not necessary for defense, but it is certainly much easier to use than fists, rocks, knives, nunchucks, etc. Therefore, those who are in favor of abortion but against gun ownership believe that a woman may choose how she wants to use and live her life, but they do not believe she may preserve her life, defending it from attack. One cannot choose how to live one's life if he cannot defend it.
This does not solely apply to females. The natural right to life is the same for all individuals. Since individuals may choose how to use and live their lives, they must be allowed to defend it, and easily. Defense is, of course, the essential purpose of guns. They are for protecting one's natural rights, not violating others', though some will use them for murder, armed robbery, etc. The government is the same. The government is for protecting people's natural rights not violating them, though it often does murder, steal, etc. Therefore, banning gun ownership is not only an initiation of force, a logical inconsistency with those who support abortion, but also a ban on defending one's natural rights.
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2008 Steven M. Paquin, all rights reserved.
Published: Friday, July 4, 2008
Last modified: Friday, July 4, 2008
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Interesting logic on what defines humanity. By your definition, a person is not actually human, nor has any rights until they are independant, can reason, and are individuals. My opinion on who can reason is pretty narrow, so we'll leave that alone for now. Independence would require mobility and the ability to procure one's own sustenance. So a parent, according to your logic, can exercise their right to live without supporting these parasitic potential humans until such time as the potential human can survive on it's own. We'll say what? 18 months sounds like a good age, most can walk and shove edible things in their mouth by then, and show some indication that they can make a decision, completely leaving alone whether they will ever be capable of making good ones. But up until that point, they are fair game for being removed from the cirle of life.
Fair enough.
Out of curiousity, if a person shows poor judgement, parasitically survives on other people through crime or sheer laziness past the age of 18 months should we consider that person to be non-human? I vote yes. We could also say that people who have a mental disability that prevents them from functioning well in society should also be removed. I'm all for antidiseugenics, me.
I also wonder whether a person who feels that their own convenience is more important than another's life should be put down. I have a high standard for what constitutes good virtuous judgement, such as being responsible for your actions, so I say take 'em out. Technically criminals are bad precisely for this behavior, so a woman who finds her lifestyle is more important than the fetus' entire life is making a similar judgement call. I mean, unless her actual survival is on the line, there's really no call to end another individual's life. Sorry, life potential. On the other hand, if someone robbed a store for money to eat, we'd throw them in jail, so maybe there is a call for punishing a woman who has an abortion to save her own life.
I do find it more ironic that liberals tend to be pro-abortion, yet anti-capital punishment. They are both final decisions. Abortion usually because it's not the best time, capital punishment usually because someone has shown gross disregard for someone else's life. They're pretty much the same thing.
Taliesin i have to completely agree with you. I would also like to add that by the same logic a dog is a human. It is an individual, it can reason for the most part and if put into the wild most dogs woudl be independent. Logic would also conclude that it is not a human.
Also if a fetus isnt human what is it? is it not alive, so it is similiar to a rock? Is it a dog? as we have proven logically that a dog is human. The only thing that a human can birth is a human. It is a human in there.
What about people in comas? people sleeping in the state of sleeping you cannot reason and you are dependent on others for your survival, for if you perpetually slept you would die, do we say that when a human sleeps that he becomes something other than human and when he awakens he is now human? of course not.
I also think where a persons choice to reproduce is mistated here. The act of mating is the act of reproducing, when one makes the choice to have sex one is making the choice to reproduce. It takes time to complete the act of reproducing. But you still made the choice to reproduce.
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2008 Steven M. Paquin, all rights reserved.