The Hobbesian psychology of the US firearms debate

ABSTRACT

In the US, headlines announcing firearm casualties have become routine. In response, the loudest and most efficacious voice among gun rights lobbyists, the NRA, consistently insists that more firearms in the hands of more people is the solution to the violence. Such a notion bears a striking resemblance to the Hobbesian conception of the state of nature, wherein no common authority exists to keep the peace. Leading from that inspiration, this paper analyzes the Hobbesian psychology of the gun violence predicament in which the United States finds itself. We argue that looser gun restrictions and increased gun possession advocated by gun rights activists – and largely being adopted across vast swaths of the US – do not follow from the underlying Hobbesian assumptions of their arguments. Further, their stance represents an attempt to carry unfettered natural right into the commonwealth, which portends the termination of the commonwealth itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Thomas Hobbes
• firearms
• rights
• violence
• defense

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to dedicate this paper to the memories of the thousands of Americans who have died preventable deaths due to gun violence. We are cognizant that real people are represented by the statistics that we cite in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. References to Hobbes are in the following format: Work, Chapter, Paragraph.

2. The organization wields this influence on behalf of its membership. Additionally, one might expect the organization to also be motivated to serve firearm manufacturers’ interests insofar as those interests align. Nonetheless, our focus is on the NRA’s publicly stated rationale and positions.

3. The legislation, which included a 10-year sunset provision, is no longer in effect. In 2004, the US Congress voted down reauthorization of the ban.

4. One might object that not all individuals will act that way. Certainly, this is true, but not all have to act this way for Hobbes’ logic to hold. Not all individuals will stockpile weapons like Randy Weaver, the Branch Davidians, the Bundies, Stephen Paddock, the Oath Keepers, and others. However, as this very partial list demonstrates, many will. This increases the chance that others do as well as a defensive measure, because as Hobbes states in Chapter xiii of Leviathan ‘and from this diffidence [fear] of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as anticipation that is, by force or wiles to master the persons of all men he can, so long till he see no other power great enough to endanger him … such augmentation of dominion over men being necessary to a man’s conservation, he ought to be allowed him’ (Lev.xiii.4).

5. Although we focus on the individual’s right to self-defense, we recognize that LaPierre and others also argue for the possession of firearms as part of a collective right of self-defense they claim the American people have against their government. On this understanding, when the government restricts access to firearms, it curtails a right that is a bulwark against tyranny. Such an argument cannot be evaluated using a Hobbesian framework because for Hobbes the sovereign is the only representative of the people’s corporate capacity and the people does not exist independently of the sovereign (Hobbes, Leviathan, xvi.13). We believe the necessity of a different conceptual framework demonstrates that individual and collective rights of self-defense are sufficiently distinct concepts to justify being treated in separate papers.

6. One would note, however, that the Supreme Court found DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER (2008) that the government could apply some regulation of ownership.

7. However, discussion of the right to firearm ownership does take on a more offensive guise, though still using the language of defense. For instance, see Welna, ‘Some Gun Control Opponents Cite Fear Of Government Tyranny.’

8. There is significantly scholarly debate over whether Hobbes can truly be classified as a pure psychological egoist. While much has been written for (e.g. Brown 1959; Gauthier 1969) and against (e.g. Gert 1967; Kavka 1986) this position, we follow Hampton’s position that ‘for the purposes of his political argument he might as well be a psychological egoist in this sense, because other-interested desires play no role whatsoever in his justification or explanation of the formation of the state’ (1986). The scope of our paper is entirely within the realm of politics, dealing with the formation and function of the state. We take Hobbes at his word that ‘of the voluntary acts of every man the object is some good to himself’ Hobbes, Leviathan, xiv, 8.

9. One might here object that it is hardly unheard of for an individual to choose to die to save their children, in the service of their country, or in the name of their religion. Hobbes is well aware that such decisions are possible as a result of what Lloyd terms ‘passionately held opinions concerning their transcendent interests’ (1986, 44). Hobbes is also aware that decisions like this can result in conflict, including rebellion and civil war. Lloyd argues that Hobbes’ project includes convincing these people that courting death in the service of transcendent interests is irrational. Hobbes therefore aims to persuade people that a proper understanding of all of their interests, including their transcendent ones, will result in the recognition that death is a loss that can never be offset. (It is doubtful that Hobbes could overcome parental instincts, but as Lloyd notes this subset is not a major concern for Hobbes as it is neither a frequent occurrence nor a systematic source of civil strife. It is therefore an exception that proves the rule rather than a problem for our argument.)

10. The precise status of natural law, and by extension the nature of this ‘ought,’ is as contested a point as any in Hobbes scholarship. It is treated as both divine command (e.g. Hood 1966; Martinich 1992; Taylor 1938; Warrender 1957) and prudential guidelines for action (Brown 1959; LeBuffe 2003; Nagel 1959). However, both sets of scholars view the natural law as having the same purpose, namely advocating those actions that are most conducive to self-preservation. For this reason, the authors of the present piece do not engage this scholarly debate.

11. That an armed society is more dangerous than an unarmed one is reinforced by the nearly 20,000 gun deaths by suicide ever year in the US (McIntosh et al. 2016). This number represents as many suicide deaths as by all other methods combined (Ibid). Further, firearms are also, by far, the most effective means of committing suicide, with over 82% of suicide attempts that utilize firearms resulting in death; for perspective, this rate is nearly 17 percentage points higher than the next most effective method of suicide (Spicer and Miller 2000).

12. For instance, see ‘Teacher accidentally fires gun and injures student during safety lesson’ (Chavez and Mossburg 2018); ‘Armed Teacher Opens Fire at Georgia School’ (Molloy 2018); ‘School Resource Officer Accidentally Fires Gun Inside Alexandria School: Police’ (Collins, Jones, and Swalec 2018).

13. See footnote 10 regarding the contested status of natural law in Hobbes scholarship.

14. While an in-depth analysis of all firearm regulations is not our purpose, we do note that the United States currently has gun regulations at the federal, state, and local level. However, they often function as a patchwork that arguably weakens their effectiveness. For example, the neighboring states of Illinois and Indiana have vastly different firearm regulations. Indiana does not require a license or permit to purchase a gun, nor is there a waiting period for purchases; Illinois requires purchasers to first obtain a ten-year license before purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition (Giffords Law Center’s Annual Gun Law Scorecard 2018). Additionally, Illinois has a waiting period between the purchase and transfer of a firearm to the purchase (Ibid). The relatively lax firearm regulations in neighboring Indiana seem to appeal to bad guys seeking guns in Illinois: A 2015 study found that 60% of guns used in gang-related crime in Chicago were purchased in Indiana (Cook, Parker, and Pollack 2015).

15. It is notable that, in the past, the NRA has been supportive of firearm regulations under certain conditions. For example, during prohibition, with the rise of crime syndicates, the NRA supported the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1938 (Elving 2017). Additionally, when the Black Panthers began to walk the streets of Oakland, CA, openly carrying firearms, the NRA supported California’s passage of the Mulford Act in 1967, which prohibited the open carry of loaded firearms (Gerhart and Alcantara 2018). Finally, in 2016, the NRA supported delays on sales to would-be gun purchasers who appeared on the terrorist watch list (Fields and Hughes 2016).

16. t What constitutes a weapon of war changes over time. Single shot muskets that would be of a limited offensive or defensive value today were state-of-the-art battlefield technology in the 18^th Century. Lever-action rifles revolutionized warfare in the 19^th Century, remain lethal today, but have been pushed aside for military use by new generations of assault rifles and machine guns. This is not a problem for our analysis because we do not attempt to present a single set of gun laws to be applied in all times and all places. Hobbes considers his theoretical principles to be universal, but expects that sovereigns will apply them differently based on the changing circumstances of political practice (Lev.introduction, Lev.xxxi). In the context of firearms, this means that different sovereigns will have to pass different laws and regulations in different temporal and technological circumstances. 18^th and 19^th Century sovereigns would pass different firearms laws than what we propose here on the basis of what was considered a weapon of war or battlefield technology in their time. For our purposes, we focus on the firearms of the 21^st Century as it is to the political practice of the contemporary United States that we wish to speak.

17. For a sustained engagement with the importance of education to the Hobbesian commonwealth, see Dietz, ‘Hobbes’s Subject as Citizen’ and Bejan, ‘Teaching the Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on education.’.

18. From the perspective of other liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, we see that none are absolute and, yet, the slope has not proven particularly slippery. For example, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, the press, and assembly, yet none of these liberties have gone without regulation. Limits have been established on each, yet these limits have not been followed by the elimination of any of the specified liberties.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan Reed

Ryan Reed received his PhD at University of California, Davis and is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bradley University, where he teaches political theory. He has published in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Public Integrity, and Politics, Groups, and Identities, and presented work at meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association and Western Political Science Association.

Christopher R. Hallenbrook

Christopher R. Hallenbrook received his PhD at University of California, Davis and is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at California State University Dominguez Hills, where he teaches political theory and American politics. He has published in the Review of Politics and presented work at meetings of the Association for Political Theory, American Political Science Association, and Midwest Political Science Association.