Andrew T. Post
gun owner and 2nd Amendment supporterUpdated 2y

Why aren’t guns banned in America?
I’m going to answer this question literally.

See this dude?

His name’s John Locke.

Born 1632, died 1704. English physician and political theorist. One of
the most prominent thinkers of the Enlightenment. Considered “the
founder of liberalism.”

America’s Founding Fathers, people like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison, cribbed heavily from Locke’s work when they
were building the moral and philosophical basis for the United States of
America and writing the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist
Papers and the Constitution and whatnot. And so did the 1st United
States Congress when they were ratifying the Bill of Rights.

Locke wrote extensively on the topics of natural rights, the balance of
power, and the origin and purpose of government. His liberal ideas were
used as building blocks by America’s Founding Fathers to craft their new
nation—the freest, purest, and most just republic the world had ever seen.

How did Locke come into these revolutionary ideas?

He built upon the work of philosophers who had gone before him, of
course. Hobbes and Machiavelli and the like.

But in addition, some interesting things happened during Locke’s lifetime.

One of these was the English Civil War (1642–1651).

This was a war between the king of England (Charles I) and his royalist
supporters (“Cavaliers”) vs. the English Parliament and their supporters
(“Roundheads”). Charlie wasn’t a very good king, you see, and Parliament
became unhappy with his repeated abuses of his royal powers.

Back in those days, Parliament didn’t really have the powers it has now.
It was basically a cabinet the king convened at his sole discretion. But
it did have the power to levy taxes, which came in handy for a total
spendthrift like Charles I.

But anyway, Charlie got to feeling a bit too free and easy for
Parliament’s liking. He went and married a French (and Roman Catholic)
princess named Henrietta Maria in 1625. Then Charlie decided to send an
expeditionary force to France to relieve the French Huguenots besieged
at La Rochelle in 1627. Parliament began to breathe easy—despite
marrying a Catholic, the king was showing support for the Protestant
Huguenots. Then Charlie went and ruined everything by giving command of
the expedition to the hugely unpopular Duke of Buckingham. The
expedition was a complete shambles. Parliament opened impeachment
procedures against Buckingham. King Charles responded by dissolving
Parliament—which was the king’s prerogative at the time.

But now Charlie was in a bind—Parliament was the only way he could raise
taxes to support his extravagant lifestyle. So he went ahead and
convened a new Parliament. This new bunch (which included Oliver
Cromwell) drew up a Petition of Right, which was basically a list of
rights the king was forbidden from infringing upon.

Sound familiar, my fellow Americans?

Parliament submitted the Petition of Right for Chuckie’s approval.
Chuckie approved it, but only so Parliament would give him his royal
subsidy. Then he dissolved Parliament.

Chaz avoided calling a Parliament for the next eleven years. He
practically bent over backward to make sure he didn’t have to reconvene
it, in fact. He went so far as to make peace with France and Spain so he
wouldn’t have an expensive war on his hands. He also resorted to some
fairly tricky means to raise money for himself. He started fining people
who failed to show up at his coronation and receive a knighthood. “Ship
money” was a tax traditionally levied against English citizens in
coastal districts, and which funded the Royal Navy’s anti-piracy
efforts. Chuck started charging inland English counties for anti-piracy
and anti-privateering measures. Naturally, this illegal and arbitrary
tax made a lot of people angry, and some of them refused to pay it.

Once again, my fellow Americans—doesn’t this sound familiar?

There was also some religious crap that went down, as usual, but neither
you nor I care about that.

For these and various other reasons, those eleven Parliament-less years
were called “the personal rule of Charles I” or more bluntly, the
“Eleven Years’ Tyranny.”

An emergency in Scotland caused Charles to reconvene Parliament in 1640.
A majority of this new body decided to use Charles I’s desperate need
for money against him. They pressured him to redress Parliament’s
grievances against him and to abandon the war in Scotland. Charles,
outraged, again dissolved Parliament. It had lasted only a few weeks. It
came to be known as “the Short Parliament.”

Without Parliament’s approval, Charles I attacked Scotland. He suffered
an embarrassing defeat. The Scots turned right around and invaded
England, eventually occupying almost the entire northern region. Charles
was soon forced to pay the Scots £850 a day to keep them from advancing
further.

Well, this put ol’ Chuckie back in desperate financial straits, so he
had no choice but to reconvene Parliament. As you may imagine, this new
Parliament—the Long Parliament, as it came to be known—was even more
hostile to him than the Short Parliament had been. And this time, they
really had him over a barrel. They forced the king to agree to all kinds
of demands. A raft of new laws was passed. Henceforth, Parliament would
convene at least once every three years—whether or not the king had
summoned them. The king could no longer impose taxes without
Parliament’s express consent. Parliament could now review and censure
the conduct of the king’s ministers. Oh, and here’s the kicker: the king
could no longer dissolve Parliament without its consent, even after the
three years were up.

My fellow Americans, does this sound familiar yet?

(I’ll give you a hint: the phrase “checks and balances” should be
running through your head right about now.)

Anyway, tensions between Charles I and Parliament eventually reached
their breaking point. Charles resented all the concessions he’d been
forced to make to Parliament, and the Long Parliament suspected Charles
of wanting to shut Parliament down and rule by military force. (They
were also worried that he wanted to reintroduce Catholicism—okay, more
like episcopalian Anglicanism, but close enough—to England.)

So the English Civil War broke out.

The outcome was pretty interesting. The Parliamentarians won. King
Charles was put on trial and executed and his son Charles II exiled.
England ceased to be a monarchy and became the Commonwealth of England,
and then the Protectorate (ruled over by Cromwell as “Lord
Protector”—essentially a military dictator). Then, finally, the monarchy
was restored in 1660 when Charles II returned from exile. But it was
restored only with Parliament’s consent. Constitutionally, a new day had
dawned for England. Monarchs could only rule if Parliament gave ’em the
green light. Britain was now on course to become the constitutional
monarchy it is today.

The English Civil War, its causes, and its outcome were all extremely
interesting to John Locke, that gaunt and mournful-looking fellow whose
image adorns the top of this increasingly long-winded Quora answer.

Locke’s most influential work, perhaps, was his First and Second
Treatise of Civil Government. The treatises were written in 1689, in
defense of the Glorious Revolution the year prior, during which Mary II
and her Dutch husband William of Orange deposed Mary’s father King James
II and VII of England, Scotland, and Ireland (that’s, uh, just one guy,
by the way—yeah, I know it’s confusing). William and Mary then turned
right around and accepted Parliament’s invitation to become joint
sovereigns of England and gave their royal assent to the English Bill of
Rights, which finally established the authority of Parliament over the
Crown.

(If you’ve ever wondered why Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t actually rule
the United Kingdom, and Parliament and the prime minister are the ones
who make all the important decisions, the English Civil War and the
Glorious Revolution are the reasons.)

Contained within the English Bill of Rights were a couple of things that
Americans might find hauntingly familiar—the prohibition of cruel and
unusual punishment, the banning of taxation without Parliament’s assent
(taxation without representation, in other words), and the right of
Protestants to keep and bear arms for their defense.

You’re beginning to see where I’m going with this, aren’t you?

In his defense of the Glorious Revolution, John Locke philosophized that
men and women, back in the savage days, had the anarchistic freedom to
pursue their own interests, which resulted in violent and brutal
warfare. To put a stop to this chaos and protect people’s inalienable
rights, governments were established to keep the peace. This peace was
maintained by laws. This principle is something Locke referred to as the
“social compact”—governments are established by mutual agreement of
individuals for the purposes of protection and the security of their
individual liberty.

The so-called first principle of the social compact is this: since
governments are instituted by the people, governments necessarily derive
their power from the consent of the governed. Since the government’s
purpose is to protect people’s inalienable rights, a government has no
power beyond what’s necessary to protect those rights. A just government
is, therefore, a limited government.

Locke argued that the definition of liberty is freedom from restraint or
violence by other people, and this cannot be accomplished without laws.
Anarchy repulsed him. But tyranny repulsed him even more. A just
government, in Locke’s view, was one with checks and balances—where the
legislative branch of government had the power to check the executive,
and the people were armed and ready to defend themselves against tyranny
from either the legislative or executive branches. Or both.

I’m currently reading a book called The Philosopher’s Handbook (edited
by Stanley Rosen). In his introduction to Part One (Social and Political
Philosophy), Paul Rahe wrote something about Locke that I found rather
interesting. (Emphasis mine.)

Locke was perfectly prepared to acknowledge the horrors of anarchy, but
he doubted very much that they so exceeded those of tyranny that human
beings could be persuaded to give up the right to organized
self-defense. A well-ordered government would include a monarchical
executive armed with a prerogative enabling him to execute the laws,
defend the realm, and respond to emergencies; it would include a
representative assembly empowered to lay taxes, make laws, and examine
the conduct of the executive's ministers. But it would rest ultimately
on an enlightened citizenry prepared, in the face of executive and
legislative abuse, to take up arms in defense of the right to life,
liberty, and property.

MY FELLOW AMERICANS, DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR YET?

Like I said, America’s Founding Fathers stole a hell of a lot of Locke’s
ideas. They used Locke’s principles of the social compact, consent of
the governed, and the right to keep and bear arms to form a near-perfect
union—to shape (and philosophically defend) the fledgling United States
of America. The Declaration of Independence says “We hold these Truths
to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” It also says
that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed…”

And the Second Amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights (the first
ten amendments to the Constitution), says “A well regulated Militia,
being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That’s not something the 1st United States Congress pulled out of thin
air. It comes straight from Locke.

And at long last, ladies and gentlemen—that is why America “allows the
general public to keep guns.” Because the right to keep and bear arms
was seen as being necessary to the security of the free state envisioned
by John Locke, and early American statesmen, heavily influenced by
Locke’s writings and philosophy, saw fit to enshrine the inalienable
right to keep and bear arms in the Bill of Rights.

QED.

Sources:

Social Compact Theory

John Locke and the founding fathers

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