BoatShoes;1378598 wrote:I think you're right in your description in the ultimate essence of what a gun is. But I'm not sure that reduction gets us much farther.
People carrying around chattels that fire projectiles at fast speeds are free to do this but there is little tangible utility and/or wealth gained by this behavior being widespread. When there is human error or fateful interventions of happenstance or malice aforethought, the harms caused greatly outweigh the marginal utility they bring which is merely pleasure to the chattel carriers.
People automobiles, a particular chattel that moves people and goods across great distances, easily and efficiently have a very great and tangible effect on increasing commerce, wealth and utility of our society as a whole way beyond whatever pleasure it might afford the user. When human error, fateful interventions of happenstance or malice aforethought intervene, the harms caused do not even come to outweighing the increase in utility we get by widespread automobile use.
So...I'm fine with saying that people ought to, as a general rule, have access to any gun they want simply because they want to and it brings them subjective happiness. However, at some point, if this subjective happiness is outweight by objective harms and there is not a concurrent objective good that does not outweigh that harm....I think it's time to at least consider the possibility of regulating in some way to reduce the objective harm.
The only objection I have with that is that no single chattel can be said to cause the objective harm prior to its happening or outside the utilization of particular individuals. As such, what objective harm does exist is, I think, a reflection of the individual causing it, and not the vehicle used to exact it. The same gun in two different people's hands, can have drastically different effects in regard to harm.
That's where I do think that the final cause CAN be established: with the person. And that is, I think, where the real danger lies.
As for the difference in utility, with automobiles it is an object of convenience to which we've grown accustomed. However, society can exist without them, and given the arbitrary nature by which we might try to quantify the convenience difference, I still see an apt comparison, though I admit it's not a perfect parallel, which you've pointed out rather well.
And I know I've said it before, but I'm rather convinced that guns as they exist today are sort of a parallel to Pandora's open box. Control and regulation would, I have a feeling, be nothing more than an exercise in futility.
