The End of Gun Control: 5.2 Of Culture and Reversing Decline
Courtesy is essential in an armed society & an organized, armed, disciplined population is necessary to maintaining constitutional order: A virtuous cycle when people understand civic obligations.
Patrick Henry, in 1788, lamented the regression from liberty, away from local autonomy, as the United States Constitution was being shopped around to the member states for ratification. He saw the consolidation of political power set forth by this new contract as ceding entirely too much authority to the general government, particularly in giving Congress control over the militia of the several states.
Yet even earlier, at the time of drafting the Declaration of Independence, there were some ‘founding fathers’ that were less than committed to liberty, properly understood as securing an unassailable right to private property. A prime example of this is Ben Franklin, who claimed that whatever property was “superfluous” to an individual’s “conservation” (meaning anything above a subsistence living standard) should be at public disposal. Such digressions left a hole in one of the most crucial and foundational legal documents for the ‘land of the free’ that the parasitic class has exploited ever since.
It may be impossible to know exactly who or what shaped the decision to exchange the phrase “life, liberty, and property”, familiar to those acquainted to John Locke’s work, for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as it reads in all extant versions of the Declaration.
Some estimate that Thomas Jefferson could not reconcile an equal right to property with the ‘peculiar institution’ of slavery. Others claim that the pursuit of happiness includes property while others still say it was chosen to gloss over the incompatibility of compulsory taxation with private property by using a ‘glittering generality of undefined idealism.’
However the verbiage was formed, we know that Benjamin Franklin was on the Committee of Five, along with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, that Congress appointed to draft the Declaration.
Benjamin Franklin is a complex character. Undoubtedly, he accomplished a great deal and contributed significantly to the Revolution.
Many early Americans were, however, concerned about his corruptibility when he accepted a diamond encrusted snuffbox from King Louis XVI, King of France, in 1785, possibly clouding his judgement or compromising his allegiances.
Yet his agitation for paper money and the leveraging of his political connections to win the lucrative contract for this money creation his commercial printing firm are hardly ever adequately scrutinized.
What is more troublesome is Franklin’s views on property and the role of government in defending it. In 1789, Franklin gave remarks on proposed revisions to the constitution of his home state, Pennsylvania, in which he claimed everyone’s property was subject to the whims of popular opinion at any time:
“Private Property therefore is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing; its Contributions therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered as conferring a Benefit on the Publick, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honour and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or the Payment of a just Debt.”
Socialists of all stripes have invoked this quote as a justification for invading or seizing private property for an ever-expanding litany of public welfare projects. After all, to the socialist line of argument, even a founding father with Franklin’s stature said that property can be taken whenever, and to whatever extent, ‘society’ calls for it.
Further, in Franklin’s view, everyone is obliged to repay an irreconcilable debt whenever some undefined ‘necessities’ require it. There can be neither liberty nor security in a society of Franklin’s conception, where everything one has can be requisitioned at any time for any purpose deemed necessary by those acting on behalf of ‘society.’ Politicians, who claim to represent society, can always find an excuse to justify taking other people’s stuff.
Remember, society is an abstraction and exists only as a convenient way of referencing a collection of individuals that share similar characteristics, such as common linguistic, religious, physical, cultural, or physical traits. Society has no independent will and anyone claiming to speak as a representative of society needs to be, as Patrick Henry advised, regarded with extreme suspicion.
Speaking on behalf of the good of society is not inherently wrong or evil. Patrick Henry, and others, advised us to guard the ‘public liberty’ after all. However, the devil is in the details. Using abstractions to craft public policy opens the door for those doing the crafting and implementing to enjoy such discretion that policies are shaped more toward their satisfaction and personal agendas. This process is how legislation gets skewed, from pursuing justice, into an instrument of special privilege and plunder.
Further, rulers are notorious for exploiting crises to expand their power and control more resources, whether the crisis be exaggerated or invented. That a political executive (president, prime minister, or king) is prone to war is why the power to declare one is reserved to the congress.
Yet this ‘parchment barrier’ too has failed to stop the legislative branch from being coopted into the National Security Industrial Complex. The science of political-economy has advanced considerably since 1789 and insights from Public Choice economics, among others, reveal the way industry capture, special interest articulation, logrolling, and the varieties of political churn that go into making public policy can, and have been, coopted into a pervasive Deep State that thrives on maximizing power and control of resources at the expense and detriment of the citizenry.
What this means for those looking to end gun control is that the right to keep and bear arms will be constantly under threat so long as such arbitrary standards for legislation and public policy are left unchecked. Economist and political philosopher Anthony de Jasay illustrated this by stating that even the most minimal state, which really means the people who work for government (along with its chief beneficiaries), seeks to maximize its [or their] discretionary power.
In other words, even a minimalist state of limited and enumerated powers, over time and through repeatedly exercising its delegated authority, will become a maximalist state; an omnipotent Leviathan centrally managing the lives, activities, and properties of all those under its jurisdiction.
In the same way that physical exercise builds muscular power, repeated exercise of political authority builds dictatorial power.
Under this pervasive onslaught of policy tweaks, regulations, and legislation accepted as law, the Second Amendment will inevitably fail to protect the right to keep and bear arms from the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ infringements perpetually being churned out at all levels of government.
The only way to permanently end modern efforts at gun control is to stop hacking away at the branches of political power and strike the root. Rather than fighting a rear-guard defense against a tidal wave of infringing regulations and legislation, protecting private property, including the ownership of arms as special type of property, needs to be placed at the center of any legitimate legal authority.
Law in a society that values private property is very simple and can be understood with two statements:
“Do all you have agreed to do and do not encroach upon other people or their property”.
With this, a viable system of contract and criminal torts can proceed into application for specific cases, disputes, and discovery processes.
There is no room for “making law” for there is nothing to add to this scientifically valid and universally applicable standard. The only matters at hand for ‘legal professionals’ to sort out, are to obtain the facts of the case, determine if, and by whom, a legitimate contract or property boundary was violated, and formulate an appropriate compensation for the aggrieved.
This all begins with, and depends upon, a culture that values private property and understands its supreme importance in the maintenance of justice.
Culture counts because the standards of reasonable behavior regarding what constitutes encroachment upon justly held property, as well as what formulates appropriate compensation, are determined by cultural values.
Cultural norms may provide for varying degrees of what is a legitimate expectation of buffer space between property lines. For instance, some cultures expect conversation to be generally conducted at an arm’s length while others are comfortable speaking to one another close to kissing distance.
Clearly, reasonable expectations of buffer space are essential to reduce social friction. Most people can recall, or imagine, the annoying child’s game of saying “I’m not touching you” while clearly violating another’s personal space. What determines personal space is highly subjective and varies from culture to culture.
One can realistically expect, with numerous historical examples to support Robert Heinlein’s quote from the novel Beyond This Horizon, that an armed society is a polite society. People that handle weapons on a daily basis, and take it as given that those they encounter do as well, develop heightened awareness, in addition to customary behaviors, to avoid accidents and unnecessary altercations.
As an example, due to over a thousand years of warrior leadership, Japan developed the custom of bowing from a safe distance (issoku itto or one full step from sword striking distance) because of the ubiquitous presence of edged weapons.
It is also important to note that today’s military salute is a throwback to the days of armored knights using their weapon wielding hand to lift their helmet visors so as to look a fellow warrior in the eye. Similarly waving and shaking hands are further examples of offering one’s weapon wielding hand to reassure others that there is no immediate harm intended.
Maintaining adequate distance and offering one’s weapon wielding hand as a greeting is both a show of respect and a demonstration of good faith. Remembering the practical purpose for developing these customs is a good way to appreciate the tactical considerations that led to a high-trust, but verify, society.
It also offers an opportunity to practice our own mindfulness. We can remember every time we wave hello or shake hands with someone that what is really going on is that we are showing tremendous respect by offering our own vulnerability. This is also a great point to discuss with those that may have forgotten the martial necessity of courtesy.
Ending gun control, then, requires building a culture that demands a private property legal order and are fully willing to participate in maintaining it. Without such a culture, the political system, that always flows downstream of culture, will continually chip away until the right to keep and bear arms (along with every other form of property) is completely eroded.
The importance of culture is what led Thomas Jefferson in his 1801 first annual message to Congress as President to extol the need for people “educated in the love of order, habituated to self-government, and value its blessings above all price.”