THE G8 AND SMALL ARMS (from the Project Ploughshares web site)
Ploughshares Monitor, June 1998
The focus of the G8 is on illicit weapons, but any definition of illicit
weapons requires the identification of those weapons that are licit - that are
legally owned and operated by civilians.
While small arms are widely understood to threaten individuals and societies,
they aren't about to be eliminated. Instead, current governmental initiatives
tend to focus on controlling access to small arms, and, to a much lesser
degree, reducing demand. Controlling access involves limiting their
availability
and restricting the conditions under which small arms possession and use are
permitted, whether for personal or public purposes. Reducing demand obviously
involves measures to create the kinds of stable social and political
conditions
in which the perceived need for weapons is reduced. Questions of access and
demand are equally relevant to both the private and public, or personal and
official, contexts. While one might assume that legal private or personal
use is
generally confined to sporting use, including hunting (there is a tiny
fraction
of hunters for whom gun use is not sport but basic livelihood), a significant
element of the demand for small arms relates to planned use for personal
protection and security. Public and official uses, by military, police and
other
publicly regulated security forces, are obviously focused on security
concerns.
The distinction between personal and public uses of small arms runs headlong
into fundamental social and moral questions about where the boundaries between
individual and collective responsibility ought to be drawn. The claim that
there is a legitimate private use for weapons for personal security reasons
carries within it significant assumptions about the boundaries of personal and
public responsibility. While the evidence suggests that privately acquired
guns
are in fact rarely used for protection or security, even to allow such use in
theory and thus to place on individuals (whether they be suburbanites in Los
Angeles or Tapoza cattle herders in Kenya) a major responsibility to arrange
for their own security, speaks volumes about the assumed limits of private and
collective responsibility.
Putting responsibility for individual and family safety and security in
private
hands radically narrows the arena of public responsibility, and in the process
reduces confidence in (and funding for) public security institutions.
Regulations to limit private gun ownership and use, accompanied by credible
support for public security institutions, are central to defining public
responsibility and the nature and character of the public social order. To
prohibit the possession and use of guns for personal security would obviously
and unambiguously expand the definition of the public domain and public
responsibility to include care for the security of individuals and would
withdraw from the domain of personal responsibility the threat or use of
lethal
force for personal and family security reasons.
In other words, the nature and boundaries of personal and public
responsibility
are central to the debate over small arms control and appropriate limits on
individual access to guns. This is a debate in which civil society
organizations, including religious communities, have a special responsibility
and a special contribution to make in support of collective care for the
security of individuals.
Ploughshares Monitor, June 1998
The focus of the G8 is on illicit weapons, but any definition of illicit
weapons requires the identification of those weapons that are licit - that are
legally owned and operated by civilians.
While small arms are widely understood to threaten individuals and societies,
they aren't about to be eliminated. Instead, current governmental initiatives
tend to focus on controlling access to small arms, and, to a much lesser
degree, reducing demand. Controlling access involves limiting their
availability
and restricting the conditions under which small arms possession and use are
permitted, whether for personal or public purposes. Reducing demand obviously
involves measures to create the kinds of stable social and political
conditions
in which the perceived need for weapons is reduced. Questions of access and
demand are equally relevant to both the private and public, or personal and
official, contexts. While one might assume that legal private or personal
use is
generally confined to sporting use, including hunting (there is a tiny
fraction
of hunters for whom gun use is not sport but basic livelihood), a significant
element of the demand for small arms relates to planned use for personal
protection and security. Public and official uses, by military, police and
other
publicly regulated security forces, are obviously focused on security
concerns.
The distinction between personal and public uses of small arms runs headlong
into fundamental social and moral questions about where the boundaries between
individual and collective responsibility ought to be drawn. The claim that
there is a legitimate private use for weapons for personal security reasons
carries within it significant assumptions about the boundaries of personal and
public responsibility. While the evidence suggests that privately acquired
guns
are in fact rarely used for protection or security, even to allow such use in
theory and thus to place on individuals (whether they be suburbanites in Los
Angeles or Tapoza cattle herders in Kenya) a major responsibility to arrange
for their own security, speaks volumes about the assumed limits of private and
collective responsibility.
Putting responsibility for individual and family safety and security in
private
hands radically narrows the arena of public responsibility, and in the process
reduces confidence in (and funding for) public security institutions.
Regulations to limit private gun ownership and use, accompanied by credible
support for public security institutions, are central to defining public
responsibility and the nature and character of the public social order. To
prohibit the possession and use of guns for personal security would obviously
and unambiguously expand the definition of the public domain and public
responsibility to include care for the security of individuals and would
withdraw from the domain of personal responsibility the threat or use of
lethal
force for personal and family security reasons.
In other words, the nature and boundaries of personal and public
responsibility
are central to the debate over small arms control and appropriate limits on
individual access to guns. This is a debate in which civil society
organizations, including religious communities, have a special responsibility
and a special contribution to make in support of collective care for the
security of individuals.
