When certain political forces or communities advocate for strict regulation, or even a ban on weapons for private individuals, they invariably expect an increase in societal security and a reduction in crime, including violent crime. The logic behind such expectations is as follows: a person without a weapon cannot cause as much harm as a person with a weapon; therefore, the freedom to arm oneself represents a threat to society.
Of course, such logic is fundamentally flawed. It is simply impossible to completely get rid of weapons. In any scenario, they will remain in the hands of government agents, such as the army and police. Likewise, they will most often remain at the disposal of bandits—they are bandits, after all, which means they will not follow a law banning weapons. If they are left without “legal” ways to obtain weapons, “illegal” methods and the black market will be used. For example, statistics from the United States show that 80% of armed criminals obtain their weapons illegally.
We see that regardless of any laws, at least two types of agents will absolutely always have weapons. However, ordinary people—law-abiding citizens—will now guaranteedly not have them. And the absurdity of such a state of affairs consists not only in the fact that the vast majority of people need weapons only for self-defense and would never use them to carry out attacks. It also consists in the fact that people are thus effectively deprived of all possible rights and freedoms at once. What can unarmed people possibly oppose against armed bandits, whether stationary (states and governments) or nomadic (private bandits and rapists)? What will they do if someone, utilizing their enormous potential for violence, decides to attack them—they who have essentially no power at all?
And indeed, this has always happened in human history. Genocides began precisely with the deprivation of the freedom to arm oneself. Before the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, a proclamation was issued regarding the seizure of weapons from the latter. The Soviet government, even before the end of the civil war, introduced the mandatory surrender of weapons to the government and severe punishments for disobedience. The German Nazis also introduced bans on arming. The same situation occurred during the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, as well as in many other genocides.
As for private violence, let us take the same United States as an example, where 94% of all mass shootings occur precisely in so-called “gun-free zones.” According to the logic of opponents of the freedom to arm, this is simply impossible, as weapons are banned there. I will also note that it is very easy to explain why the mass shooting rate is so high in places with a ban on weapons, whereas in places where weapons are permitted, they almost never occur. Why would they happen there, if any bandit attempting to arrange such a thing would instantly receive armed self-defense from their potential victims in response?
I would like to ask the opponents of the freedom to arm—what will you do if your government, deciding to purge people it finds undesirable, turns its weapons against you? What will you do if a bandit with a pistol, or even just a knife, attacks you? What do you suggest all ordinary and peaceful people do in such situations? Obviously, no adequate answers to these questions can be given without referring to armed self-defense.
To speak out against the freedom to arm and against the natural human right to self-defense is to give a small percentage of bandits and rapists full coercive power over the entire society. An attempt to achieve greater security ultimately results in less security, if not its complete absence, because security cannot exist where some people possess a relatively infinite potential for violence, while others have neither the right nor the means to defend themselves. Private banditry and government genocides are the unsurprising result of such aspirations.
