One major characteristic of our open societies, organized along with the principle of separation of powers, is the monopolization of force. In essence, this means that the individual citizen foregoes his/her natural right to use their physical strength to establish or upkeep and restore justice. Citizens transfer this responsibility to the enforcement authorities of the State, tasked to protect citizens and preserve and restore justice wherever and whenever required.
Every developed nation establishes a legal order that is also just as it allows for individual freedom and personal responsibility. It opens its monopoly of force toward its citizens only to a clearly defined extent. The State does this in acknowledgment of the fact that no monopoly of power can ever be absolute. Potential situations for individual citizens might occur. At least temporarily and specifically in the initial stages of threat and danger, the monopoly of force is not immediately present to protect and prevent harm from taking place. The possibility of such situations is why a (Nation-) States' monopoly of force restricts itself and allows for individual (self-) defense in clearly limited circumstances.
Legitimate and well-informed governments are aware that the right to self-defense and gun ownership, within clearly prescribed confines, fosters and consolidates the monopoly of force. The monopoly of arms and private gun ownership provides a synthesis for a nation's most efficient internal safety and security. The United States Constitution offers proper evidence for this claim to ensure the military forces' effectiveness was one objective the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind. The constitutional intent to provide for "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," together with the vastness of the country and the remoteness of specific areas and settlements provided for generous authorization as well as demand to have firearms in the hands of private citizens ever since the inception of the republic.
Beyond the U.S., history proves that the more totalitarian a society becomes, the more restricted is the right to self-defense and the right to bear arms. There were no such laws, for instance, in the Soviet Union or Hitler Germany.
It appears that with the infiltration of radical elements of Islamism by migration as well as the potential threats arising from homegrown terrorism, the desire to own guns and enable themselves to self-defense is significantly increasing among citizens not only in the United States but also in Europe. The rising numbers of applicants for gun ownership on both sides of the Atlantic speak volumes and give testimony to that fact.
While the enforcement of existing gun legislation and every measure conceivable to prevent unjustified use of weapons from happening ought to be supported, individual politicians and political organizations' campaign to restrict gun ownership to the extent even of confiscating guns is misguided. It is an ideologically motivated move that blames radical terrorist violence on wrong causes and expects remedy from ill-conceived measures.
I've made clear throughout my blog entries that there will never be good practice without good theory. If decision-makers have no clue about the structures and intrinsic designs that underlie the complex challenges we face in our political life, we can never expect anything profound in their policies and approaches to solutions. Procedures will be a permanent process of trial and error and will always be reactive, constantly corrected after and by the fact, after making some new damaging experience. One good example of this is the current challenge of radical Islam in the wake of the San Bernadino massacre. The non-existent strategy against Islamism and radical exponents of it at home seem to exhaust itself in the tiring repetitive claim for stricter gun laws. It is interesting to observe how the unfolding of a painful reality pushes politicians toward more meaningful and proper policies, step by step leaving behind ideological and partisan prejudice. After the San Bernadino incident, everybody could watch Mr. Obama's embarrassing attempt to talk himself out of his misjudgment and to justify his doubling down on the failed policies that led to such catastrophes.
In the end, hopefully, he, as well as many others, will arrive at efficient policy arrangements an excellent theoretical foundation in human and political affairs would have suggested to them in the first place.
