Justifying Tyranny

There is opposition to the ownership and carrying of arms by 18-20 year olds. This opposition has decided to basis its argument on the contention that since people of that age group are less responsible that it is perfectly reasonable and acceptable to restrict their rights. If they could truly viewed gun ownership as a right rather than a danger they would see the horror that they are supporting in their logic.

Their logic is that rights and privileges of an individual may be restricted basis on the social groups that person belongs to and the ability of those groups to exercise the right in question comparatively responably.

The first injustice of argument is that assertion that people should be judged on the basis of the groups they belong to rather than their own actions or qualities. I think that all discrimination based on age is reprehensible but here it may allow the anti-gun crowd to argue for group restriction while maintaining that such restriction would be abhorrent if based on social class or ethnicity. I can only assume that they would find ethnic and class based restrictions abhorrent as I have never seen that asserted from their side and many of their advocated polices disenfranchise the poor and a disproportionate number persons belonging to minority ethnic groups.

The second injustice is that rights should be dependent on any comparative standard. That civil rights should be have to be earned, won, or justified by any standard is deplorable. But a comparative standard can be manipulated to achieve almost any result one desires. For example no social group will commit less crimes with guns than people in comas thus comparatively restrictions are justified on every other group. That one can lose one's rights through no misdeed or crime but the failure to manipulate the relative statistics is vile as is the abuse of statistics in this way.

It is hardly possible not to see the many abuses have resulted from justifying actions against a group on the basis of that group's inferiority. This rational has supported harassment, humiliation, oppression, slavery, exile, and genocide of countless people. It will never again be acceptable.

If the opponents of gun ownership wish to openly support all the applications of this principle as potential just (subject to a statistical prof of inferiority of the group) then they may use this logic without hypocrisy. Otherwise they endanger us all with their by foolishly trying to legitimize an exceedingly dangerous rational for very small gain.