Gun Control: A European Perspective
2015; Philosophy Documentation Center; Linguagem: Inglês
10.7710/1526-0569.1535
ISSN1526-0569
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoFrom a European perspective the US debate about gun control is puzzling because we have no such debate: It seems obvious to us that dangerous weapons need tight control and that ‘guns’ fall under that category. I suggest that this difference occurs due to different habits that generate different attitudes and support this explanation with an analogy to the habits about knives. I conclude that it is plausible that individual knife-people or gun-people do not want tight regulatory legislation—but tight knife and gun legislation is morally obligatory anyway. We need to give up our habits for the greater good. Essays Philos (2015)16:247-261 | DOI: 10.7710/1526-0569.1535 Published online: 7 July 2015. © Vincent C. Muller 2015 Contact author: vincentmueller@bsg.ox.ac.uk | http://www.sophia.de i I am grateful to Joe Gratale, Eleftheria Deltsou and an anonymous reviewer of Essays in Philosophy for very useful comments. Gun Control | Muller 248 THE VIEW ACROSS THE ATLANTIC he debate about gun control in the US has long puzzled me, and not just me; all Europeans that I know feel the same: We don’t have guns and we think it obvious that guns must be tightly controlled: Use for hunting is all right, but a civilian owning a gun for self-defence should be a rare exception. This is not just a majority opinion; it is the consensus, a political non-issue. This difference between Europe and the US in is remarkable, since our cultures appear fairly similar, otherwise. So, with this background of a European (German) who lives in Europe (Greece, also the UK) I read Chris Riddle’s introductory remark in the Call for Papers, “Gun violence is an unfortunate reality in our global society. Recent discussions surrounding this topic have been polarizing and emotionally charged.” ... and my first response is: No; not where I live. Here, gun violence is not a reality and discussions are not emotionally charged. In fact, we don’t discuss this issue because we agree. Let me explain my ‘reality’ a bit more: I live in the city centre of a one million town (Thessaloniki) in a state of lasting economic depression. But in my experience there is no gun violence: Armed robbery with guns is rare enough to make the headlines for days and police usually do not ever fire their gun in a lifetime of service. We don’t have the dangerous ‘no-go areas’ our American visitors ask about. In 2014, we had 14 homicides total in town, and 5 serious robberies. I have never owned a gun and have only ii Greek police crime statistics show 14 homicides in 2014 (same for 2013) for the Prefecture of Thessaloniki with 1.1 million inhabitants; which is a homicide rate of 1.27 over 100.000 inhabitants. In 2014 we had 402 robberies, of which 197 of mobile phones and 2 bank robberies T Essays in Philosophy 16(2) 249 ever touched small calibres. To my knowledge, nobody I don’t know has a handgun, and only two people have hunting rifles. Of course, it is not impossible to buy a gun on the black market but I would not be sure where to start searching (while getting drugs would be easy). The UK and Germany offer similar pictures: In the UK even police do not carry guns (except in Northern Ireland). In Germany police do carry guns, but no ordinary citizens has a handgun; everything is tightly regulated, and gun violence is, again, a fairly exotic phenomenon. I can only speculate why criminals in Europe do not use guns more: It probably has to do with high risk and low reward of using guns: significant penalties, a lack of acquaintance with guns and low risk of encountering armed resistance. Is there anything that can be learned from this contrast of cultures? If I had to find arguments for gun control, I would suggest that the need for guns (small arms) in the hands of civilians depends on the society one lives in. The right to ‘bear arms’ should find its limits when it infringes on the rights of others to ‘safety’, and whether that is the case or (Greek Police 2014). The situation is by no means uniform across the country (of ca. 11 million): The area around the capital Athens (Attiki) has multiple times the violent crime level than more rural areas, especially with a much increased level of violent crime in the last decade. iii For a funny illustration of English gangsters trying to acquire and use guns, watch the movie “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1998). iv The definition of the 1997 United Nations’ Report of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms was: “Small arms: revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, and light machine guns. Light weapons: heavy machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable antitank and antiaircraft guns, recoilless rifles, portable launchers of antitank and anti-aircraft missile systems, and mortars of less than 100 mm calibre.” (cited in GIIS 2007, p. 3)
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