Ayn Rand’s Complicated Views on Guns

As a fan of Ayn Rand, I’m trouble by some of her views on gun ownership. Consider these statements:

Q: What is your opinion of gun control laws?

A: I do not know enough about it to have an opinion, except to say that it is not of primary importance. Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, non-criminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. It is not an important issue, unless you’re ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn’t very practical. [Ford Hall Forum, 1971]

Q: What’s your attitude toward gun control?
A: It is a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people — they are not carried for hunting animals — and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is going to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim.
[Ford Hall Forum, 1973]
Source: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/?showtopic=11624

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One of the good things about objectivism is that we have no idols, so I can disagree with her if she’s wrong.

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his.
Source: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html

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In the Journals of Ayn Rand, she admits that depriving men of arms can cause them harm:

“With modern technique and modern weapons at its disposal, a ruthless minority can hold millions in slavery indefinitely. What can one thousand unorganized, unarmed men do against one man with a machine gun?” This passage could be taken to suggest that weapons in individuals’ hands are necessary to fight against tyranny (an argument sometimes used against gun control). However, it says nothing about the role of guns in a free society, so could be considered off-point.
Source: http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/essays/guns.html

Here are her views on the 2nd Amendment itself: From theLetters of Ayn Rand, in a letter to a Mr. Flynn: “A man has a constitutional right to bear arms. But if a man has declared that he intends to murder you, it is not your duty to provide the knife and place it in his hands.”

And yet:

The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control” (From “What Is Capitalism?”)
A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control, i.e., under objectively defined laws.” (From “The Nature of Government”)

Some final quotes:

Weapons are amoral in that a weapon is not capable of making a moral decision. The weapon user makes a moral decision every time he/she chooses to use or to not use the weapon.

The second amendment exists in the milieu of the entire Constitution and, more specifically, in that group of amendments that are intended to insure specific freedoms for US citizens. It is difficult to say that any one or more of these freedoms is more or less important than the others. However, if I were intent on subjugating a populace, I would first work to limit freedoms of speech, assembly, property, habeas corpus, press, religion, and other interpersonal communications. Once the populace is “properly” subservient, removing their personal weapons should be fairly easy.

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Those are interesting views, and we’ve already seen limits on free speech, property, religion, habeas corpus, etc. I know Ayn Rand often uses the word “gun” as a metaphor for something else, which is a mistake under the rules of objectivism which demands one be literal and not subjective.

So how can a gun owner treat Ayn Rand? Perhaps by embracing the best part of her philosophy such as accepting that A is A, always searching for a right and wrong instead of believing that everything is shades of grey, accepting one’s individuality, rejecting collectivism, and never allowing another man or a State to become Dominus (master) over you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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