A new Working Paper by Tim Hsiao entitled The Right to Fight Back and the Right to Own a Gun is available. Tim is a Fellow here at the FRC and a long-time scholar of the philosophy and ethics of gun ownership and religious views on self-defense. The paper’s abstract reads:
I argue that the right to self-defense is best understood as the right to fight back. On this view, self-defense is not a passive entitlement to protection but an active expression of individual moral agency. I contend that this understanding directly entails a strong moral right to own and carry firearms, since meaningful resistance requires access to a reasonable means of fighting back. I challenge the common tendency to conflate self-defense with public safety, and I respond to prominent objections.