{"id":713,"date":"2013-01-16T13:53:31","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T18:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=713"},"modified":"2013-01-16T13:53:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T18:53:31","slug":"gun-control-and-fairness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html","title":{"rendered":"“Gun Control” and “Fairness”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace <\/em>was a liberal Democrat\u2019s fantasy.\u00a0 In this fourth and final installment of the film franchise launched by Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve\u2019s Man of Steel rids the planet of all of its nuclear weapons by rounding them up and launching them into the heart of the sun.\u00a0 The nations of the Earth rejoice as a new era of world peace begins. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Superman thinks about nuclear weapons the way liberals think about nuclear weapons and guns: if we get rid of them both, we get rid of the death and violence of which they are the \u201ccause.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

To President Obama and his fellow partisans who are now itching to add ever stricter \u201cgun-control\u201d measures to the mountain of such laws that are already on the books, I propose that we follow their logic all of the way through and aim to divest everyone <\/em>of access to guns.<\/p>\n

For years, those on the left have mocked their opponents who have insisted that it isn\u2019t guns<\/em>, but people<\/em>, that \u201ckill.\u201d But if this is so, then not only should we seek to prevent the average law-abiding citizen from bearing arms. Police officers and secret service members, soldiers and professional bodyguards, should be prevented from doing so as well.<\/p>\n

The heart of logic is consistency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet it isn\u2019t just formal consistency that is at stake here.\u00a0 There is also the issue of fairness.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

The concept of a \u201cstate of nature\u201d figures prominently in \u201cthe social contract\u201d strain of the liberal tradition. According to this approach, (government-) organized society is like a contract.\u00a0 As long as its members consent to its terms, it is legitimate.\u00a0 The biggest non-negotiable of such terms is the demand that in signing on to society, so to speak, individuals agree to abandon the right to be judge, jury, and executioner that belongs to them in \u201cthe state of nature\u201d when each is on his own. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In spite of their many differences, all of the great social contract theorists agree that unless individuals were willing to forfeit or delegate this right, there could be no state or society.\u00a0 This is a cost to being a member of society, for it makes the task of self-defense more difficult than it otherwise would be in a state of nature.<\/p>\n

But it is a cost that everyone<\/em> must be willing to pay if <\/em>they want to reap the benefits to be had from living in society.<\/p>\n

However, in our society, not <\/em>everyone is willing to shoulder this burden of self-restraint.<\/p>\n

Namely, the privileged, society\u2019s top one percent\u00a0especially, have escaped paying their fair share of this burden that has been unequally distributed among the remaining 99%.\u00a0 Worst, it is the top one percent–like President Obama and his allies in government and Big Media\u2014who seek to make it all that much heavier while doing nothing to lift a finger to chip in.<\/p>\n

Obama is not paying his fair share.<\/p>\n

Neither are New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo paying their fair share.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Obama, Bloomberg, and Cuomo don\u2019t have to worry about their homes being burglarized.\u00a0 They don\u2019t have to worry about their <\/em>children\u2019s schools being shot up by a demented gunman. They don\u2019t have to worry about being physically assaulted on the street or in a crowded movie theater.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They and the rest of the one percent, whether its members are politicians or celebrities, have abundant access to armed bodyguards and security of various sorts. The 99% have no such resources.\u00a0 Because they have only their own guns to rely upon, the latter are already at a disadvantage relative to the former.\u00a0 There is no level playing field here.\u00a0 But Obama and his ilk in the\u00a0one percent\u00a0want to disadvantage the disadvantaged even further by making it that much more difficult for them to defend themselves.<\/p>\n

We are in dire need of a dramatic redistribution of goods and burdens.\u00a0 Such a scheme demands that Obama and the\u00a0one percent\u00a0make the same \u201csacrifice\u201d that they are now demanding of the 99% and, thus, drastically reduce, if not altogether abandon, the firepower currently at their fingertips.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, not for a moment will they consider this.\u00a0 There is, though, another option of which lovers of equality and fairness can avail themselves: Obama and the\u00a0one percent\u00a0can remedy the unequal distribution of burdens that they have imposed upon the backs of the 99% by removing the obstacles to self-defense that they continue to throw up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all, nothing says equality like a gun.\u00a0 With a firearm, the weakest and smallest can topple the strongest and largest without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is about much of a chance that Obama and company will consider this possibility as there is that they will consider the first. \u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was a liberal Democrat\u2019s fantasy.\u00a0 In this fourth and final installment of the film franchise launched by Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve\u2019s Man of Steel rids the planet of all of its nuclear weapons by rounding them up and launching them into the heart of the sun.\u00a0 The nations of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"Gun Control" and "Fairness"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Gun Control" and "Fairness"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was a liberal Democrat\u2019s fantasy.\u00a0 In this fourth and final installment of the film franchise launched by Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve\u2019s Man of Steel rids the planet of all of its nuclear weapons by rounding them up and launching them into the heart of the sun.\u00a0 The nations of…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-16T18:53:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Gun Control\" and \"Fairness\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Gun Control\" and \"Fairness\"","og_description":"Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was a liberal Democrat\u2019s fantasy.\u00a0 In this fourth and final installment of the film franchise launched by Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve\u2019s Man of Steel rids the planet of all of its nuclear weapons by rounding them up and launching them into the heart of the sun.\u00a0 The nations of…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2013-01-16T18:53:31+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html","name":"\"Gun Control\" and \"Fairness\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-01-16T18:53:31+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-16T18:53:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/gun-control-and-fairness.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Gun Control” and “Fairness”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jack Kerwick","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5","name":"Jack Kerwick","description":"I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, a master's degree in philosophy from Baylor University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies from Wingate University. I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}