Guns should be legal for home defense in the U.S.

The Problem of Self-DefenceI think the most satisfactory way to justify self-defence, is the principle of liberty. “[T]he sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” - J.S. Mill [1]Your justification of self-defence for an 'objective reason' is flawed, because the desire to live and to protect your family and property can be overcome, suggesting that these are not the foundations you suggest they are, and because being a (great) factor in aiding survival is no reason to consider it moral. A father is presumably not morally justified in killing and eating his infant children over the winter in order to sustain himself until he can start another, more successful, family later. I find then that we must agree on liberty as the justification of self-defence, and so I conclude that self-defence is only justified to the extent that it stops an action which would cause oneself harm.It seems then that should one find a burglar in your house, one is not permitted to steal his shoes after he is detained. But what can be made of a different situation? Consider: you are sitting outside your house with a gun, as I imagine you Americans enjoy doing, and a little girl approaches you holding an egg. She informs you that due to your campaigning against euthanasia, her dear grandfather is suffering needlessly in his bed, and that she is about to throw the aforementioned egg at you. You inform her that actually, you are not the man she is looking for, but she does not believe you and raises her hand to throw the egg. Now, you do not want egg on you, and so you point your gun at her. She smiles and says that you could never shoot her. It seems then that the only method of guaranteeing that you do not suffer any egg on you is to shoot her immediately so that the egg drops harmlessly to the ground. Is anyone satisfied by that conclusion? I think not, rather, it appears to be the case that you are not permitted to prevent harm to yourself if the harm caused to the aggressor by your method of self-defence is extremely disproportionate to the harm you would suffer. A slightly less absurd scenario is as follows: you are sitting on your porch, et cetera, but this time you see a youth across the road about to throw a rock at an empty greenhouse. Again, you aim your gun and shout: ‘Stop!’. He turns, but ultimately ignores you and again readies himself for the throw. To prevent damage to the greenhouse, you could of course shoot him, and then stroll over to his body and utter a pithy remark such as ‘Don’t throw stones when you live in a glass house, punk’. This seems similarly outrageous, and I think you will agree. You may claim that in all likelihood the juvenile reprobate would be frightened away by the gun, but it that is not necessarily the case. From those examples, I propose that the legitimacy of a lethal weapon for self-defence is questionable. Using a gun to defend against crime assumes that either it is justified to make the aggressor fear for his or her life in whatever situation it is, or that it is justified to cause serious and perhaps fatal damage to the aggressor. I will grant these assumptions are justified when the use of a gun is directly proportional, i.e. you may use a gun against someone who you reasonably believe is attempting to kill you, but the rest I think is your burden to prove. How many eggs must be thrown before you can shoot her, Roy?The Possession of FirearmsPerhaps confusingly, in this section I am going to issue what may seem like two contrary challenges, indeed, Poetaster may call me inconsistent again, but nonetheless it is my duty, and my desire, to investigate every detail the argument you propose. I gather that your system of background checks is what is written in the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act. [2] I find issue with a few of the restrictions, for I assume, as the name of the act indicates, that preventing violence is the aim of these restrictions, specifically by preventing ‘violent’ people from acquiring firearms. These people must be very violent indeed if you want to take away their “fundamental right” to wield the “only practical means of self-defense” (quoted from you).On page three of the PDF, I find the following restrictions:“(iii) is not an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act);‘‘(iv) has not been adjudicated as a mental defective or been committed to a mental institution;‘‘(v) is not an alien who is illegally or unlawfully in the United States;‘‘(vi) has not been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; and‘‘(vii) is not a person who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced such citizenship;”I see little evidence that these people are violent, beyond recognising what are in all likelihood unjust stigmas. Cannabis use appears to prevent someone from purchasing a weapon, but how is a user of cannabis violent? A study in New Zealand concluded that “increasing cannabis use in late adolescence and early adulthood is associated with a range of adverse outcomes in later life. High levels of cannabis use are related to poorer educational outcomes, lower income, greater welfare dependence and unemployment and lower relationship and life satisfaction”. [3] This study did indeed only establish correlation rather than causation, and I am a staunch defender of cannabis, so why am I citing it? Well, for the reason that if cannabis was correlated with any kind of crime other than drug-taking, the study would have certainly mentioned it, considering how in-depth their analysis was. Some drugs may correlate or even cause violent behaviour, but it cannot be said that all illegal drugs do.Preventing the mentally ill from acquiring guns does not seem to be an evidence-based decision either. A study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that “patients discharged from psychiatric facilities who did not abuse alcohol and illegal drugs had a rate of violence no different than that of their neighbors in the community”. [4] Though this does appear to lend credibility to the first restriction discussed, the violent effect is only certainly caused by alcohol (which apparently is not part of the gun-ownership criteria), as no illegal drugs are named. Moving back to the issue at hand, it seems very clear that mental illness is not alone an indicator of violent behaviour. Furthermore, according to your, and I stress, your logic, crime is prevented by possessing guns. Your gun control strategy here seems to become incoherent, as you withhold guns from the mentally ill, and yet “People with severe mental illnesses, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychosis, are 2 ½ times more likely to be attacked, raped or mugged than the general population”. [5] Briefly, I see no reason why illegal immigrants, non-violent criminals, ex-citizens, etc. should be denied weapons. I am not affirming that guns prevent crime, but arguing that your position seems incoherent. Unfortunately my argument exceeded the character limit, so you will have to wait for more. Oh, and by the way, my challenge to you involving justifying the use of a gun in self-defence is my rebuttal of your claim that 'guns prevent crime', for now, because it is possible that a greater crime is being committed in deterring the original crime. [1] http://www.iep.utm.edu... [2] http://www.gpo.gov... [3] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com... [4] http://psychcentral.com... [5] http://depts.washington.edu...