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Guns and Privacy
by
Scott McPherson,
April 4, 2003
Ask a member of the mainstream political Left whether he would be willing to
have a camera installed in his house — by the government — with the
explicit purpose of monitoring his activities for any potential wrongdoing.
Like any self-respecting human being, he would very likely recoil in disgust
against so blatant a violation of his privacy.
Next, assure him that, though you recognize the issue at stake, it is merely
a means of guaranteeing that he is a law-abiding citizen. Still, he won’t
budge.
Finally, promise him that all footage of his personal activities will be
immediately destroyed after being reviewed for unlawful conduct. Rest
assured he will still want nothing to do with your crimefighting agenda.
Now, ask him to extend the same courtesy to gun owners and repeal the
background check for firearms purchases. You’ll not have to wait long before
every rationalization under the sun is brought to bear in an attempt to show
you how “that’s different.”
“We have to know if someone is a criminal before allowing him to have a
gun,” he might proclaim. “How else are we to know if someone is a good
person?” he will ask. And finally, “Of course all the records will be
destroyed. You’re so paranoid!” And then he will wander off, utterly
astonished by your knee-jerk, gun-nut response to what everyone knows are
just “commonsense” safety measures, while shaking his head in amazement that
you would place so hallowed an institution as personal privacy on the same
plane as owning a gun.
How barbaric.
What the Left doesn’t get is that gun control is an issue of privacy. In a
free society, more is at stake than what we’re allowed to do and not do.
Granted, this is a major factor, but free people, by definition, should also
enjoy the pleasure of going about their daily lives without having to
justify themselves to anyone. They do not live their lives by another’s
leave.
Evolving out of a millennium of feudalistic, collectivist thinking,
dignified human beings blazed a trail that was expressed by the immortal
words, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident ...” The entire concept of
freedom required a paradigm shift away from the Old World notion that people
understand the limits of what they could do, to a new worldview expressing
the need for humans to live their lives free of the shackles of their
fellows. As Ayn Rand observed, “Civilization is the progress toward a
society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the
laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from
men.”
Privacy is about dignity. It’s about free men and women being trusted to
live their lives, choose their morality, make their decisions, and generally
function in society without having to prove to anyone that they deserve to
exercise their rights. Dignity and self-respect require that others prove
wrongdoing before our liberties are proscribed or restricted — as opposed
to the constant battle of pleading with others to trust us with our own
affairs.
Privacy and the political Left
Today, in our highly complex society, the political Left views most privacy
issues as essential to that worldview. For them, privacy is an outgrowth of
the presumption of innocence. Asked why they might object to a video
camera’s being placed in their house or in a crowded shopping district,
you’ll hear it explained as simply a “matter of principle.” This isn’t a
knee-jerk reaction — they’re actually right. The idea of freedom is a
principle, a universal truth that lies as the foundation for human
relationships. It doesn’t need to be questioned, justified, modified,
quantified, or explained. When told, “You don’t have to worry if you’re not
doing anything wrong,” the principled privacy advocate responds, “I’m not
going to lower myself to the level of a child in need of supervision.” Such
a position requires nothing less than dignity and self-respect.
Sadly, those on the Left who speak so eloquently about the need for personal
privacy are unwilling to extend that deference to those who wish to make a
private, personal decision about purchasing a firearm. For them, privacy is
about principles — except when it comes to guns. Ask a Leftist to fill out
a credit application and he’ll grill you mercilessly about corporate
domination and the potential for “winding up on some list.” Yet, strangely,
when a person wants a gun, it’s the idea of a list that the Leftist sees as
panacea. With bitter irony he will ask, “If you haven’t done anything wrong,
why should you object to a background check?”
But if we can justify forcing those who wish to own a firearm to prove
themselves worthy of the privilege, then why not subject other activities to
the same rigorous standard? Surely being a parent is as large a
responsibility as owning a gun, if not a larger one. After all, parents
raise the next generation. Why not demand they get a license before having a
child, as some gun-control advocates have suggested we do with guns? Child
abuse is a horrid and widespread problem. Why not require all parents to
have their children regularly checked by a government-approved specialist
for physical or psychological mistreatment? No, dear Progressive soul? Not
even if they promise to destroy the records afterwards? If it will save just
one child . . . ?
Another favorite cause of the Left these days is so-called ballistic
fingerprinting, whereby the barrel markings or “DNA-equivalent” of every
firearm is put on file with law-enforcement authorities. Allegedly this
technique has helped solve some crimes. So of course we should begin
fingerprinting and taking DNA from every American citizen and filing them
with the FBI, right? It could only prove even more effective at catching bad
guys.
The fact is, if we can argue which freedoms people will be allowed to enjoy
on utilitarian premises, then the whole caper is blown, because there is no
government control that cannot be justified on such grounds. The Soviet
Union managed for decades to suppress all basic freedoms because of the
damage that a maverick individual might cause if allowed to speak, trade,
worship, travel without restriction, or own a gun. That’s why a free society
is so dependent on its participants’ hands being tied when they begin to
worry too much about what someone else is doing. Every now and then, the
Left slips up and properly identifies this as privacy.
Scott McPherson is a policy advisor at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va.
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