Debating Gun Control: How Much Regulation Do We Need?(Debating Ethics)

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.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I: Lester Hunt 1. What is the Issue of Gun Control About? 2. Arguments Based on Rights and Arguments Based on Facts 3. Self-Defense: A Right that Deserves Special Protection 4. Option-Rights and Means-Rights 5. Taking a Principled Position 6. The Ethics and Jurisprudence of Risk 7. Philosophizing about Empirical Studies 8. Policy Implications Part II: David DeGrazia 9. Introduction to Part II 10. Law, Ethics, and Responsible Public Policy 11. Critique of Appeals to Self-Defense and Physical Security 12. Critique of Appeals to Liberty Rights 13. The Consequentialist Case for Gun Control 14. The Rights-Based Case for Gun Control 15. Gun Politics in the United States 16. Policy Recommendations

About the Author :
David DeGrazia is Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, where he has been teaching since 1989. He is a well-respected moral philosopher who is especially well-known for his work in applied ethics. DeGrazia's books include Taking Animals Seriously (Cambridge UP, 1996), Human Identity and Bioethics (Cambridge UP, 2005), and Creation Ethics: Reproduction, Genetics, and Quality of Life (Oxford UP, 2012). He is also the author of over 100 shorter professional publications, many in leading ethics and philosophy journals. Lester Hunt is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He has also taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon University, and The Johns Hopkins University. His books Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue (Routledge, 1991), Character and Culture (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), and Anarchy, State, and Utopia: An Advanced Guide (Wiley, 2015). He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles on the history of philosophy, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of economics, and the presentation of philosophical ideas in literature and film.

Review :
"DeGrazia and Hunt demonstrate that reasonable disagreement about gun control is possible. Both authors articulate nuanced and thought-provoking positions, and avoid cheap shots and sensational rhetoric." -- Allen E. Buchanan, James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy, Duke University "The problem of gun violence in the US has become a major moral and political issue; yet those who work in moral and political philosophy have thus far made almost no contribution to the public debate. This debate tends to be dominated on both sides by controversial statistical and factual claims that appear in isolation from any framework of moral argument in which their significance could be properly understood. This admirable book offers precisely the sort of moral principles and arguments that are necessary to explain the significance of the factual claims. Although the authors have strongly opposed views, they share the aims of identifying the central moral issues, thinking through them carefully, and presenting their arguments and conclusions in ways that are lucid, fair-minded, and unpolemical. This is a highly important book that should be read by everyone concerned with the problem of gun violence." -- Jeff McMahan, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford