Jean Jacques Rousseau’s social contract relied heavily on the people’s position and power within the government. Rousseau insisted that the people remain the sovereign and their ideas and choices are represented. He found that the best way to see the sovereign’s ideas represented is through a majority decision. Rousseau believed this majority decision would always represent the general will of the people, even those who at first did not realize it was the correct decision and voted otherwise. This general will represents the people as a whole.
When it comes to the topic of gun control and stricter policies, Rousseau would continue to leave this decision to the majority. While in his time, methods of determining the majority may have been more difficult and harder to achieve, it has become easier today with increases in technological advances to understand citizens’ stances. One view of Rousseau that would not support this majority vote on gun legislation is his emphasis on the importance of a moderate state. While he mentions that the state should not be too small, he also recognizes the importance of making sure it is not too big. Rousseau supports this idea by pointing out the difficulties of regulating too large of a state. He believes that once a state becomes too large, administration becomes both burdensome and costly as more levels of government must be created. He also recognizes with such a large, broad group of citizens, it would become too difficult to maintain legislation that is fair and represents all individuals.
This difficulty of finding the correct law fair to all individuals is a question constantly faced in the country today – especially gun laws. With so many different cultures throughout the country, individuals have very different opinions on which is the best way to regulate gun control. While it is true to set on one opinion for all individuals, Rousseau earlier supported the idea of the majority representing the people. It is clear that today, even with such a large state, it is not very difficult to uncover the majority and their preferences through elections. A recent PEW research study found that over half of adult Americans support stricter gun policies.
While this majority represents the country as a whole, it is interesting to look at the nation as smaller, moderate states as Rousseau suggests. Another PEW study found that when dividing the country into four smaller regions, Northeast, Midwest, South, and West, the majority seems to change. Both the Midwest and South regions held majorities that did not prefer stricter gun control policies while the Northeast and West regions found majorities who did support stricter gun laws. This divide in the country’s majority brings into question if Rousseau was right all along. In order to be fair to the members of the country, it might be more reasonable to break into moderate states.
Consequently, Rousseau does not seem to have a particular stance on whether gun policies should be more or less strict, rather he is dependent on the people to use their knowledge of the current state of the country to make a judgment on what should be done. Using Rousseau to analyze the current political climate in America tells us less about what should be done about specific policy and more about what could be done about managing the size of the state to be sure the majority continues to represent the general will of the people.
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