Thomas Hobbes acknowledges the faults of mankind and their inability to be trusted to self-govern through his own political theory in Leviathan. Hobbes understands that in order for individuals to protect themselves from the state of war and nature, they must voluntarily submit their rights to join under a sovereign power. (ch. 17) While Hobbes supports the process of the succession of these rights, he acknowledges a single right that cannot be given up – the right to self-preservation. (ch. 21)
The idea of self-preservation is viewed as the sole liberty left to the individual in order to preserve his life. Going as far to say “a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life,” Hobbes recognizes the importance of individuals’ capability to preserve themselves. (Ch. 14) Therefore, by not allowing individuals to protect and preserve themselves, the government would be depriving them of their lives.
Taking Hobbes’ theory into account, it seems to support the ownership of firearms throughout the country as a form of self-preservation and self-defense. While this would seem to make sense to a thinker like Hobbes, especially in his time, statistics today reveal the opposite. A study from the Violence Policy Center shows that only about 3% of criminal gun homicides in 2014 were justified as self-defense. While the idea that these firearms could be used for self-defense is understandable, it is clear that their use in this approach is rare. Rather, these firearms are being used for the opposite – something Hobbes aimed to stop.
In recent years, mass shootings around the country have become more common and even more deadly. The reoccurring horror stories continue to reveal individuals who Hobbes had warned us about, ourselves. As he had recognized, in a state of war individuals are inherently bad. (Ch. 12) In order to protect them from themselves, they must be regulated and maintained by a government to protect their lives.
While Hobbes insists that surrendering our rights to the government is what is necessary in order to maintain our lives and order, what should happen if that no longer is true. Further examination reveals that the current government’s failure to enact laws that protect the citizen from these inherent evils have resulted in the failure of the Commonwealth and possibly a shift back into the state of nature. The government must take steps in legislation to regain the trust of the people and offer the protection they were promised when entering the contract.
Some may see these steps as stricter gun laws while others see it as the prohibition of guns altogether. It is important to consider what other forms of self-preservation are left to the people because Hobbes understands that without this availability of self-preservation, the government takes away the lives of citizens. Recent years have shown that law enforcement is not enough to provide this preservation to the people. Therefore, it is up to society to work together and reach towards the correct legislation that will offer the preservation while still protecting the people from themselves.
While technological advances and shifts in society have revealed that firearms may no longer the be the safe, direct method to self-preservation, legal organizations, such as law enforcement, have also proven to not be as reliable as they once were after recent cases of discrimination and mistreatment. This leaves Hobbesian thinkers to once again reexamine the tools available to us in society today to best understand what can be used as self-preservation. Therefore, Hobbes’ work does not give an answer to whether stricter gun control needs to be enforced, but that society together must work to find the best, safest means of self-preservation.
Sources:
Hobbes, Thomas. “Hobbes’s Leviathan. : Reprinted from the Ed. of 1651 / With an Essay by the Late W. G. Pogson Smith.” Handle Proxy, Universitat De Barcelona.