Philosophical Questions on Personal Defense

A journey into the philosophy and legal structure behind personal defense in the United States

caveat reador

I had hoped to spend more time talking about more basic questions of liberty before jumping right into controversial topics. Circumstances dictate otherwise. The circumstance is the multistate campaign to restrict gun rights. My hope is that I can appeal to your magnanimous sense of reason regardless of where you stand on this issue.

This essay will be a particularly lengthy one. This subject is an emotional one for most everyone regardless of where they stand on the spectrum so a proper treatment of the discussion requires a great deal of nuance. Nuance requires lots of words. At least for me it does.

With your permission, let's get into it.

philosophical questions

Rather than start with the very controversial Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, let's start somewhat closer to first principles. Let's pose some questions that will help to frame the discussion and hopefully lead us to a deeper inquiry into this deeply personal subject.

What is it to be alive? We do not choose to be born but once we exist, what are the things which are unassailably ours? Even the word 'ours' comes with some baggage because it implies possession. Is our body a possession? Is our mind? If they are, how does that impact what we can do in a world that is tabula rasa with ourselves in a state of nature?

Once we begin to unpack some of these questions we can start to see that the world that we have inherited does not come without some context. We have a relationship to the earth, or more generally, the cosmos. We have a relationship to ourselves. And, we have a relationship to each other.

Let us invite a second person into our tabula rasa world. What rights do we inherently have in relation to that other person? Can we occupy the same space? How do we decide who gets to occupy what space? How do we allocate resources? Here is where we start to get into the realm of needing to add additional context to our tabula rasa world and move away from innocence into a more contemporary reality.

What do we do if the second person in our world wants something which we are holding in our hands, a coconut, for example. Do we hand it to them? Do we resist them? What does it mean for something to be mine? Does our second person have a right to my coconut? Do they have a right to my life? To what extent am I naturally accountable to them?

These questions, and moreover your contemplation of them, are intended both to provide context to the rest of the essay as well as to hopefully break us free from our preconceived notions of weapons and fighting so we can have a proper discussion about life, property, and personal defense.

your money or your life?

Stranger: "Hey, bud. Bud!

Jack Benny: "Huh?"

Stranger: "Got a match?"

Jack Benny: "Match? Yes, I have one right here."

Stranger: "Don't make a move, this is a stickup!"

Jack Benny: "What?"

Stranger: "You heard me."

Jack Benny: "Mister, mister, put down that gun!"

Stranger: "Shut up. Now come on. Your money or your life?"

...

Stranger: "Look, bud, I said, 'your money or your life!?'"

Jack Benny: "I'm thinking it over!"

Let's let this classic scene from Jack Benny's radio program provide some levity to this otherwise weighty discussion. This scene remains funny after all these years because people contemporary to this program and people now would find this choice to be obvious, whereas Jack seems to need to think before deciding. Given the choice of money, which really just represents stored labor, ie. a finite quantity of our life's previous efforts, versus our actual mortality, which represents 100% of our remaining life, the choice to give the robber our money would be easy to make. No amount of money could possibly compensate us for our life. Indeed, how would we avail ourselves of our remaining bankroll if we no longer exist?

Now that I've ruined the joke, we can bring this discussion back to earth and into the present from the golden age of radio.

If we take as given that a person has a right to the life they were given, what level of effort or activity are they entitled to by their very existence to maintain and preserve their life? As a contemporary society, we seem to believe axiomatically that a person has the right to ply their efforts to acquiring resources to sustain themselves and their family. If this is uncontroversial, then should it follow that a person has a right to preserve and defend themselves and their family from those that might do them harm? After all, shouldn’t it be fair to preserve the life one has spent effort to build? From what should a person have a right to defend themselves and their family?

The questions get dark quickly but history shows that unreasonable violence against the fundamental right to existence can take many forms. We really can't take anything for granted or assume good intent across the whole of society or across large swathes of time.

some thought experiments

This part is going to get a little uncomfortable because I'm going to ask you to depart from your comfort zone and ordinarily very peaceful life into the world where harm could visit you or your loved ones.

The best way to contextualize the rights and responsibilities of personal defense is to come up with scenarios and then think through how you would want to react under those circumstances? Or, perhaps more concretely, how you would want to have reacted in those circumstances after all was said and done. What would you be proud to have done? What would be your personal path to regret minimization?

Let's start off easy with Jack Benny's scenario. Let's say you were carrying a concealed weapon when you encountered the robber? Would you draw? Would you let them know you had the weapon? Would you hand over your money?

Let's say the person didn't ask for money but drew their weapon and you were sure they were intent on firing?

What if someone broke into your house and grabs your child. They are unarmed but are threatening your child with violence?

What if they have a knife or a gun?

No two people have the same threshold which, when crossed, they are willing to resist violence with violence. However, I would assert that everyone has that threshold regardless of how peace loving they are. If you don’t yet have that threshold in mind, try expanding on the above scenarios to find your line. Replace the threatened person above with the person you love most in life. They are threatened with lethal force. What do you do?

isn't this why we have police?

Police are not for personal defense. Police are for law enforcement. If someone is threatening you but hasn't yet caused you harm, it is quite possible that no law has yet been broken. Brandishing of a weapon, perhaps. However, once they have murdered you, now the police are on task to investigate, root cause, and bring the criminals to justice. That might be a little late for you. Even if the transgressor is currently breaking a law by, for example being in your home against your wishes, summoning the cops will take time. How much time do you have in that case?

case law

I am not a lawyer so everything I assert in this section and in this essay in general should be taken with a grain of salt.

You might say that this is all well and good but the Second Amendment does not provide for personal defense but for the defense of the community in the form of militias. What even is a militia? Given a standing army, we don't really need them anymore and therefore, the Second Amendment is a vestigial relic of a time long past. Let's visit the wording of the original amendment just to get that on the table.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

This does seem to indicate that it is the security and freedom of the state is at issue and not a person's security and freedom directly.

Heller

In 2008, The Supreme Court decided the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

The Heller decision essentially modified the Second Amendment to include personal defense of individuals, their families, and their communities. It further stated that the amendment clarifies what is meant by a militia as individuals capable of acting in concert for the common defense against a government who would disarm the citizens in order to "enabl[e] a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule." It also "den[ies] Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms," emphasis added. I highlight ancient right because this term argues for a philosophical right to defend and preserve one’s life that is implied by nature or existence itself and does not originate from the state.

So a rewritten Second Amendment based on this decision might read:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, and for reasons of personal self defense of individuals, their families, and their communities, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

McDonald

In 2010, The Supreme Court decided the case of McDonald v. Chicago.

The McDonald decision joins the Fourteenth and Second Amendments and clarified that Second Amendment protections extend to the various States and reiterated the right to keep and bear arms for self defense. In other words, the State cannot preempt the Federal protections provided by the Second Amendment. Let's extend our edit, given this context.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, and for reasons of personal self defense of individuals, their families, and their communities, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed by the Federal, State, nor Local governments.

Caetano

In 2016, The Supreme Court decided the case of Caetano v. Massachusetts.

Prior to this ruling there was not as much clarity in what constituted "arms" which could be borne for self defense. This decision clarified that the Second Amendment "extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." Inigo Montoya may use his sword. Let's continue our edit.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, and for reasons of personal self defense of individuals, their families, and their communities, the right of the people to keep and bear arms of any kind, and not restricted to only those useful in warfare or those in existence at the nations founding, shall not be infringed by the Federal, State, nor Local governments.

Bruen

Finally, in 2022, The Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.

This decision declared the "New York State law requiring applicants for a license to carry a concealed pistol on their person to show ‘proper cause’, or a special need distinguishable from that of the general public, in their application" unconstitutional. This essentially adds concealed carry to the Second Amendment as a right, barring any constitutional disqualifications.

Let's conduct our last edit in light of this decision.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, and for reasons of personal self defense of individuals, their families, and their communities, the right of the people to keep and bear arms of any kind, inside or outside the home, concealed or otherwise, and not restricted to only those useful in warfare or those in existence at the nations founding, shall not be infringed by the Federal, State, nor Local governments.

Whew, that got a little bit wordy in our expansion. Obviously, this is a very unofficial rewriting and should not be taken as legal advice or having any authority. What I'm trying to demonstrate is the nuance that case law has brought to bear on the right to personal defense, where it originates from, and what it means for Americans in 2023.

my own journey from hoplophobe to gun owner

I used to be a hoplophobe.

I grew up around guns but aside from really enjoying the craft of getting proficient at pellet rifles when I was a boy in small town middle America, I didn't hunt or evolve beyond that.

After graduating college, I moved to Japan and lived there for a couple years. In Japan, not even the police have guns, at least not the white gloved police that you see about town, and I thought that that might be a good model for the United States to evolve toward.

After attending a traing session with a cofounder of Open Source Defense, another great substack. I became intrigued by 1) how difficult it is to actually shoot a pistol well and 2) how much I never really evaluated personal defense and firearms. I decided to learn more about them but I didn't like the idea of having no purpose or goal to aim for so I decided to make hunting my purpose and the lens through which I would view gun ownership. I wanted hunting to deepen my connection with food and with nature. I also wanted to deepen my relationship with my father who is an Army veteran and my model for responsible gun ownership. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and because we have more black bears than any other state in the lower 48, I decided to make black bear hunting my purpose due to its sustainability and difficulty. That was 2014. In 2016, I took my first bear and in 2019, I took my second. I guess I can call myself a hunter now but I still feel like I have a long way to go in this craft which has become an integral part of my life and defines the flow of my year.

I eventually began to admit that I should also learn about the self defense and liberty preserving aspects of firearm ownership so I went and read everything by Jeff Cooper. I'd suggest starting with Principles of Personal Defense. If you choose to arm yourself for self defense, I suggest reading Andrew Branca's The Law of Self Defense and Massad Ayoob's Deadly Force. The laws are subtle and vary by state.

why am i talking about this now?

Several states are currently pushing forward laws which infringe on Americans' Second Amendment rights. Washington and Colorado are particularly aggressive in what they are trying to do. I don't want to get in to the specifics of the laws but they look likely to pass. Washington’s new bill was signed in to law this morning. I believe they will eventually be deemed unconstitutional and, if you agree with some of the analysis above, perhaps you’ll agree. Most of the people who read this are in the USA and are of voting age. Vote your conscience.

I have also avoided spending time discussing the tragic mass shootings which beset our nation all too frequently. I'll just say that getting rid of the guns is probably not the answer. Let's solve that another way.

conclusion

Thank you for bearing with me on this long journey through amateur philosophy and amateur law. My only goal is to make you think about this thorny issue, perhaps in a new way than you have before. None of the above should be taken as legal or philosophical advice. I welcome the civil discussion that I hope this essay starts.