Oh, no…passengers with guns? - Gun Rights

American Handgunner, July, 2002 by Jeff Snyder

Same argument, but the hull of the aircraft is now the public streets. Indeed, gun control proponents sometimes do make this "arms race" argument. (See the Gun Rights column, "CCW Reform Movement Spreads Despite Bogus Anti-CCW 'Study'," Oct./Nov. 1995 Handgunner).

So bans on public carry are just another "reasonable" restriction. If safety is the goal, one has no principled basis for opposing this argument. One can only argue that the armed gang/overwhelming force scenario is not what really happens. Despite that feared result, it's not the actual result, based on what experience shows. If (or when) experience shows the contrary, one will have to concede the "reasonableness" of the restriction, just like I am being asked to concede the reasonableness of the airline travel restriction by my critics.

There is another method, however, of deciding upon the proper course of conduct and we will take that up, along with the question of whether liberty is consistent with safety, in our next column.

Jeff Snyder is the author of Nation of Cowards -- Essays on the Ethics of Gun Control, available at amazon.com; www.nationofcowards.net, email: jsnyder@ekks.com