The straightjacket of false freedom: airline passengers with guns - part 2 - Gun Rights

American Handgunner, Sept-Oct, 2002 by Jeff Snyder

Previously, I've argued passengers should have the right to carry handguns on flights. Now, let's get back to a continuation of the examination of safety and liberty.

I've noted most people find it very difficult to make a permanent choice in favor of liberty. Instead, they want to decide on a case-by-case basis. They want safety and think people should be reasonable in giving up some liberty in order to have safety. It does not seem to them it's a great deal to ask because the restrictions often seem so minor. But, the reason these arguments are often so heated is because what's really at stake is not how annoying or burdensome, or how much of an affront the particular restriction is -- but the conflicting ways of deciding what's right and what's wrong.

There are at least two ways of trying to decide what a proper course of conduct is. By far, the most common is to consider the result one wants and then to choose the means that seem, from experience, most calculated to secure that result. That choice is "good," meaning, essentially, it produces the desired result. This manner of deciding upon the "goodness or badness" of an action is known as having and exercising prudence. Its ultimate goal is what Aristotle argued was man's greatest good -- happiness.

In the March/April issue of Handgunner, I took us through an example of how this type of approach worked to pursue the goal of safety in air travel and demonstrated there was no stopping point short of the complete deprivation of any right to carry arms. (The complete article is now available on the Handgunner website if you would like to read it.) Now let's pick up where we left off.

The second manner of deciding whether or not a particular course of action is "good or bad" is by reference to ethical principles. This method has its eye not on the results one may or may not achieve for oneself but what one owes to each human being because he is a person like oneself. Each is endowed, as it states in the Declaration of Independence, by his creator with certain inalienable rights. The ultimate goal of this approach is not a worldly happiness, but obedience to God (or if God bothers you, then adherence or obedience to conscience).

This method of deciding the right course of action concerning air passengers traveling with guns would begin quite differently. We would first note each person has a right to defend his life and, therefore, a right to have the tools fitted to that purpose. We would then ask whether we have any right to deprive any person of that right.

The answer at common law would have been a resounding "No." Under common law, a person may be deprived of his rights only with "due process at law," meaning conviction of a crime by a jury of his peers where the crime involved a clear harm to another person, committed with bad intent. Men who had not done anything wrong, in other words, could not be restrained or deprived of their liberty.

This would certainly not be the answer under modern law, because modern law seeks to prevent, and so intentionally restrains the innocent before they have done anything wrong, so they cannot do anything wrong. "Due process" as the Founders understood it, no longer exists.

Under common law, however, that would be the end of the matter. All persons would be entitled to the presumption of innocence. Being "not convicted" with due process by a jury of their peers (as our founders understood it), everyone could fly with guns, and too bad if you didn't like the answer. You owe it to each other person because it is the fundamental respect and dignity that is owed him as a person, just as others would owe it to you. Heinlien's "An armed society is a polite society" is, perhaps, a good example of this thinking.

The fact you may be nervous about someone else's possible behavior or afraid of what he might do -- when he has given no outward sign of violence or of being a threat to you -- does not create a right to restrain him or take away his liberty. His rights are not dependent upon your unsupported emotional state, founded on fears about what might happen. (Please note I am leaving aside the question here as to whether the airline, as a property owner, has a right to refuse to carry passengers with guns. I speak in this column only of whether the government could pass a law or regulation prohibiting carrying of weapons in airplanes.)

Elimate The Threats

It may seem this state of affairs is not conducive to safety, and it certainly is not if you conceive safety as eliminating threats by rendering people harmless. The culmination of this approach would be everyone flies buck-naked and receives full body cavity searches before boarding the plane. Of course, everyone could fly in straightjackets, and the flight attendants could feed you and pull down your pants when it was time to go to potty.

Viewing what we owe one another, based on mutual respect for our rights, it's irrelevant whether or not respecting one another's liberty leads to greater safety. Nevertheless, I would argue only liberty is capable of producing safety resulting from people assuming responsibility. Depriving people of liberty yields safety only by rendering people incapable of doing harm.