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Openly Carrying Handguns for Self-Defense

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Abstract

The journal articles in the extant philosophical literature which argue in favor of carrying handguns for self-defense tend to assume that these weapons will be concealed and make no mention of carrying them openly. This paper aims to show that, since open-carry can be more effective for self-defense than concealed-carry, any argument for a moral right to carry a handgun for self-defense which relies on a claim of their effectiveness and which assumes concealed-carry, entails the moral right to carry them openly in public.

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Notes

  1. One author who does mention open-carry, says only that his “discussion does not bear directly, it seems, on the question of carrying a gun outside of one’s home concealed, as opposed to openly.” Hall (2006: 308).

  2. Hsiao (2017: 660), citing Wheeler (1997), et al. at Hsiao (2017: 660 n. 4). Since Hsiao uses both “guns” and “firearms” to refer to handguns, whenever I quote him and he has used either of these terms I have changed them to “handguns” for consistency. Hsiao (2017: 659 n. 1).

  3. Hsiao (2017: 660); indeed, he thinks “the right to own a [hand]gun and the right to carry a [hand]gun are really just distinct parts of a single right” (2017: 661 n. 8).

  4. State v. Reid 1 Alabama 612, 619, 621 (1840), quoted in Meltzer (2014: 1519, 1514).

  5. “[T]he federal definition of a ‘mass killings’ [is] ‘3 or more killings in a single incident.’” Schwelt (2016: 3), quoting the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, 28 USC 530C(b)(1)(M)(i). “The FBI does not include the shooter in the totals of killed and wounded.” Schwelt (2016: 3, n. 8)

  6. Alternatively, the concern might be that the person open-carrying will be targeted by the criminal precisely because the criminal wants to take the handgun. Like uniformed law enforcement officers, who regularly open-carry in close proximity to criminals and criminal suspects, those who intend to open-carry (as well as those who intend to concealed-carry) should use a retention holster and include weapon retention in their firearms training. See Harbison 2009.

  7. For discussion of the empirical evidence, as well as the intellectual history of rational choice theory and deterrence theory (in which Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy figures prominently), see Paternoster 2010.

  8. Thanks to J. Angelo Corlett and to an anonymous reviewer of this journal for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

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  1. Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, East Carolina University, Brewster A-327, Mail Stop 562, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353, USA

    Rodney C. Roberts

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  1. Rodney C. Roberts
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Roberts, R.C. Openly Carrying Handguns for Self-Defense. Philosophia 47, 499–503 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-9973-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-9973-x

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