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Posted by on Jan 18, 2013 in In the news | 2 comments

John Howard on gun control

Former Australian prime minister, John Howard, has an op.ed. piece in The New York Times about his experience in Australia in introducing dramatic new restrictions on guns, back in 1996. I’m not much of a fan of Howard – he’s a very conservative politician, both socially and fiscally. I’m all for fiscal responsibility, but the “social conservative” part is a long way from my politics.

And yet, Howard led the push on gun control, gaining support across the board in Australia, from both liberals and conservatives like himself.

This underlines my point that there is no inherent reason why someone with a socially and fiscally conservative approach to politics should favour unregulated, or very loosely regulated, markets in deadly weapons. (The converse is that liberals in the Millian tradition will not necessarily favour gun control laws – we need to see some facts that add up to a case for restricting individual liberty to purchase whatever goods you like.)

Howard’s article, which is factually accurate as far as I know, provides one more resource for the debate currently going on in the US. One part of the message should be that it’s okay to be a social and fiscal conservative who favours gun control. There is nothing inherently against gun control in such a position – it’s more a matter of historical and expedient alliances. However, it will take some leading American social/fiscal conservatives to come forward and make that point if it’s to sink in. Will it happen? Well, I can’t say. Most of my readers are probably in a better position than I am to make that call. But if someone with good credentials does so, I’m betting that others will follow. And this could be key to getting changed laws.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jamie.farren.50 Jamie Farren

    One of many problems here in the United States of America is that we face not merely the “fiscally conservative” but a commited branch of conservatives inspired by political Libertarianism. These individuals (and an increasing number of traditional conservatives) hold to a set of first principles which certainly does reject the notion of governmental involvement in such issues.

    When the topic of more restrictive gun legislation is brought up words like “tyranny” and “fascism” are used regularly. These remarks are not only coming from the fringe element of survivalists. A decent proportion of otherwise reasonable individuals seem convinced that without access to powerful ballistic weaponry, large capacity mags/clips and other accessories, the will stand little chance against their own government should it turn to tyranny.

    I am not, for the record, such a person.

  • RussellBlackford

    Yeah, what can I do but nod along? I’m sure everything you’ve said is correct. I’ve certainly heard this argument from one or two people who’ve argued with me, i.e. that we need to be armed with weapons approaching or matching those of the military in order to be able to rise up against a future tyrannical government. Some people actually seem to believe this – i.e. they are not just rationalising their attachment to their SIG Sauer P226 pistols with high-capacity magazines and their heavily-accessorised AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, or whatever they prefer.

    Like you, I expect, I think this is an adolescent power fantasy, unworthy of grown men (it’s almost always men, though I suppose we could also find some women). The US has all sorts of checks on tyrannical government. Not all of them are successful against individual laws that I consider tyrannical, such as many anti-drug laws, but the prospect of an overall tyrannical government is pretty remote, and the prospect that it could come about without overwhelming popular support is even more so. I’m finding it very difficult to imagine a realistic scenario in which armed rebellion against the US government could make sense under 21st-century conditions. (Even if it did make sense, the rebels would actually need RPG launchers, full-automatic rifles, mounted mini-guns, military helicopters, Humvees, missile launchers, and a helluva lot of other cool porn equipment that no one really seems to be arguing should fall into the hands of civilians.)

    The only argument I can see against gun control relates to the Millian harm principle. You’d have to argue that the harm principle supports not banning things because of merely remote or indirect harms (I agree with this), and that the case has not been made out to suggest that guns are an exception. This would then take you into a detailed debate as to just how urgent the problem is of many gun-related deaths in the US, what role is played by the availability of powerful weaponry, large capacity magazines, etc. So, how urgent is the problem, and what are the minimum constitutionally-acceptable laws needed to do something serious about it?

    Once it’s expressed like that, I think there is going to be a very strong case for much more regulation of guns, and for it to be more consistent across jurisdictions.

    But let’s have that debate, not one based on silly fantasies.
    (If we had to fight Skynet it would be a different story, but the word on the streets is that that is not going to happen.)