Americans have a deeply ambivalent relationship to guns. The United
States leads all nations in rates of private gun ownership, yet
stories of gun tragedies frequent the news, spurring calls for tighter
gun regulations. The debate tends to be acrimonious and is frequently
misinformed and illogical. The central question is the extent to which
federal or state governments should regulate gun ownership and use in
the interest of public safety. In this volume, David DeGrazia and
Lester Hunt examine this policy question primarily from the standpoint
of ethics: What would morally defensible gun policy in the United
States look like? Hunt's contribution argues that the U.S.
Constitution is right to frame the right to possess a firearm as a
fundamental human right. The right to arms is in this way like the
right to free speech. More precisely, it is like the right to own and
possess a cell phone or an internet connection. A government that
banned such weapons would be violating the right of citizens to
protect themselves. This is a function that governments do not
perform: warding off attacks is not the same thing as punishing
perpetrators after an attack has happened. Self-protection is a
function that citizens must carry out themselves, either by taking
passive steps (such as better locks on one's doors) or active ones
(such as acquiring a gun and learning to use it safely and
effectively).DeGrazia's contribution features a discussion of the
Supreme Court cases asserting a constitutional right to bear arms, an
analysis of moral rights, and a critique of the strongest arguments
for a moral right to private gun ownership. He follows with both a
consequentialist case and a rights-based case for moderately extensive
gun control, before discussing gun politics and advancing policy
suggestions. In debating this important topic, the authors elevate the
quality of discussion from the levels that usually prevail in the
public arena. DeGrazia and Hunt work in the discipline of academic
philosophy, which prizes intellectual honesty, respect for opposing
views, command of relevant facts, and rigorous reasoning. They bring
the advantages of philosophical analysis to this highly-charged issue
in the service of illuminating the strongest possible cases for and
against (relatively extensive) gun regulations and whatever common
ground may exist between these positions.
Les mer
How Much Regulation Do We Need?
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780190251284
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter