Do Guns Make Us Free?: Democracy and the Armed Society by Firmin DeBrabander (review)

Many critics of American gun culture and policy argue that the public health benefits of stricter regulations compensate for the associated loss of freedom: a bit less freedom is an acceptable cost for the expected gains in public safety. By contrast, gun advocates sometimes claim that freedom to own guns underlies all other important freedoms and therefore deserves priority over considerations of public health. In this volume, philosopher Firmin DeBrabander takes a distinct critical approach, denying any significant loss of freedom associated with gun control. Widespread gun ownership in the context of lax regulation makes Americans—and anyone else similarly situated—less free.

In developing his case for this thesis, DeBrabander argues more specifically that strong gun rights and widespread gun ownership (1) do not liberate us from fear, (2) don’t protect us from tyranny, (3) serve as a diversion for those in power, and (4) constitute a threat to free speech and assembly. The book offers a political and cultural analysis of the gun rights movement in the United States. Although the author’s tone is highly critical of the status quo, he mentions in the Preface that he does [End Page e-15] not oppose gun ownership with wise regulations (xv). The book supports gun control rather than a ban on private gun ownership.

Chapter 1, “The Culture of Fear,” provides a helpful overview of American gun culture, featuring lax regulation along with high rates of gun ownership and gun violence. DeBrabander notes that gun violence is disproportionately experienced by urban African Americans and that the strongest support for gun rights comes from suburban and rural whites, who are least in need of armed self-defense. The discussion illuminates the gun lobby’s strategy of dichotomizing law-abiding citizens and those intent on doing them harm, identifying “bad guys” and the mentally ill—rather than easy access to firearms—as the chief cause of gun tragedies. The emphasis on dangerous people, according to the author, has been part of a general strategy of cultivating fear in prospective gun owners, and may help to explain why Americans tend to believe that violent crime has increased in recent decades when in fact it has declined.

Chapter 2, “Guns, Government, and Autonomy,” addresses gun ownership in relation to law, political philosophy, and freedom. Like many scholars who favor stronger gun regulations, DeBrabander is critical of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court asserted that the Second Amendment grounds a right to individual gun ownership. He also criticizes the NRA’s slippery slope reasoning—that new gun regulations will unacceptably increase the risk of sliding to gun bans and confiscation—while deftly demonstrating that John Locke’s political philosophy does not support the gun lobby’s agenda. Locke and his intellectual brethren opposed the vigilantism that is encouraged by the NRA and Stand Your Ground laws, whose bias in favor of shooters and against victims DeBrabander does a great job of exposing. Don’t citizens need to be armed to protect themselves against tyranny? No, the author argues. Not only would arms prove useless against the power of the U.S. military; brandishing arms against government personnel who harbor unjust intentions would probably increase one’s chances of getting killed.

Chapter 3, “The Face of Oppression,” argues that the gun rights movement, contrary to its public image of hostility towards government, actually consolidates government power. In an interesting discussion of Machiavelli’s notoriously underhanded advice to political rulers, DeBrabander argues that congressional leaders’ hostility toward even the most sensible gun regulations cannot be explained by lobbying power alone. Rather, part of the explanation must be in terms of a shrewd political [End Page e-16] calculation: that one can keep the masses relatively happy with guns and the accompanying illusion of freedom. By contrast, if a government shows that it does not trust citizens to own and handle guns, it unflatteringly lumps ordinary individuals with felons and...