Some time ago, in my post "My Vision of Government", I argued that one of the foundations of sound government is to make as few distinctions as possible, effectively treating all things the same unless a distinction is absolutely necessary. I elaborated upon this in terms of individuals (specifically government privileges being granted to select groups, such as office holders) in my post  "Symmetry and Asymmetry in Government". And, a short time ago, I was working on a post examining the same theme one last time, this time in terms of gun control. In that post, I had intended to argue that there was no rational reason to treat guns differently from any other good, as any good is potentially lethal, and the distinction for guns existed only to distinguish them so that special laws could continue to be applied to them. However, that final article got a bit cumbersome, and so I left it sitting in the "Drafts" folder until I could decide whether it should be finished, rewritten or abandoned*.

However, I was reminded of this post today, when reading of a documentary on the Armenian genocide, which discussed the progression from small civil rights violations to full blow massacre. The same, obviously, took place during the more well know Jewish holocaust of World War II, but also in a number of other persecutions, such as the Stalinist persecution of kulaks. It seems even in totalitarian states where the state ostensibly has limitless power, the progression almost always goes from small steps, intended to distinguish the group as separate from the general public, through increasing persecution to eventual segregation, and, in many cases, extermination.

And that reminded me exactly how significant it is for a group to be made distinct in the mind of the public before it can be subjected to different treatment. If even dictators feel the need to delineate minorities before wiping them out, clearly there is some importance to the whole concept.

Let us move from more serious matters for the moment, to the less, to demonstrate how this process works. I will avoid the topic of genocide to avoid the strong feeling such an example may elicit, and instead pick the topic of smoking, another area where gradual distinction was used quite effectively to move from no regulation to total ban**.

I am not that old, yet I can recall a time when cigarettes were effectively without restrictions. My home state of Maryland banned their sale to those under the age of 14, but, as there are few IDs capable of establish one as 14 or 15, it was a regulation that was rarely enforced and effectively ignored. And it remained that way for a long time. Then came the first regulation, the attempt to ban smoking or airlines. The argument was simple and "common sense". People cannot avoid smoke on an airplane, and so, to allow those who do not want to inhale smoke to avoid it, it only makes sense to ban smoking on flights.

At the time, some said it was a first step in gradually banning smoking, but were called hysterical, and yet, that is exactly what it was. Once tobacco became a special case, different from all other goods, it was easier and easier to impose restrictions. At first, they were simple "common sense" extensions of the airline rule. Mandatory "non-smoking" areas. Then, as the public became used to seeing smoking as something distasteful, more regulations. Higher and higher age requirements. Mandatory non-smoking areas changed into smaller and smaller smoking areas, and then, eventually, the movement of smokers outdoors. Confiscatory taxes on cigarettes.Attempts to ban smoking outdoors in certain towns.

I am not about to debate whether or not these measures were justified or a good thing. All I wish to point out is the methodology. While a good, service, action or group of people is seen as just one of many similar things, it is hard to enact laws against them. The moment we start to distinguish something, it suddenly becomes increasingly easy to pass laws aimed at that group or good. Once the public becomes used to seeing something as different, as unique, the objections to imposing special restrictions melt away, and we are left with ever increasing regulations.

And that is why I have argued that freedom is best served by uniformity of laws. When we have laws that differ for each minority group, that change by sex, or sexual orientation, that vary by age or by any other irrelevant status, it is easy for the government to impose laws which should not exist. So long as a law is seen as only effecting a single group, already suspect by virtue of being separated fromt he group, it is no trouble for the state to wield excessive power. But when that law effects all of us, then it is not so easy.

If you doubt this, just look around. Would gun control be as easy to enforce if the laws imposed on guns had to be imposed on every good you bought? Or is gun control easier because it applies only to a small group of goods, which have been made suspect in many minds by being treated differently? And that is but one example. Time after time the law manages to grow because it is aimed at a small, distinct group, be it of goods or people. It is only such distinctions which keep more form objecting.

And so, if we truly value freedom, one very simple step we can take is to ask, before we distinguish a specific group of goods, of actions, of people, or whatever, and then impose some special laws upon them, be they beneficial or harmful, before that takes place, let us ask if it is truly essential to define such a group. Whether we need to create this special category, or if we cannot achieve the same goals with laws which are universal in nature. Or if we even need such laws at all.

IN so doing we will avoid many situations which could eventually lead to the rapid growth of government power.


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* The argument for guns is worth reproducing in part:

If we were to put aside our lengthy history, running back through the many decades of gun laws, through the 1934 federal machine gun statutes, to the second amendment, and even back to the arms laws of the English Civil War and even farther to historical precedents such as the Spartan disarming of helots or the Japanese regulations disarming commoners, if we could blind ourselves to all this history and come to the question without preconception, we would see guns as just another good, one among many. Guns are no different in nature from washing machines, gasoline canisters, kitchen knives, automobiles, skeins of yarn or 2x4s. All are goods manufactured for sale to consumers, all are part of the normal flow of commerce, and all are sold directly to the public. Some may argue guns can kill, but so can knives, matches, cinder blocks or the belts of bathrobes, so it seems in no way to distinguish firearms from any other item of commerce. Gasoline could kill far greater numbers, fertilizer even more, as Oklahoma City showed, and arsenic or strychnine could probably kill more easily, it is only our historical bias which makes us see guns as particularly deadly compared to other objects.

Well, allow me to qualify that, there is one way in which guns are unique, they allow killing regardless of the physical strength of the user, and do not require subterfuge the way poisons or arson do. So guns are suitable not only for murder, as are the others, but also for self-defense, unlike the others. And so, viewed reasonably, guns are actually different in one sense, they have a legally justifiable use, unlike most lethal objects, and, unlike others, they allow the weak and infirm to defend themselves as well as the fit and strong. But beyond that distinction, guns still are no different than any number of other objects, and that distinction, to the degree it need be recognized, would argue for less regulation, not more.

But let us put aside the few distinctions between guns and other potential sources of lethal force. As I argued in the opening, guns differ in no way from thousands of other objects, virtually anything can be a means of killing another. Men have been killed with everything from baseball bats to automobiles to lead pipes to bricks to corkscrews to box cutters. Guns are not unique in that regard.  Some argue guns make violence easier, but I argue history says otherwise. Countless lethal wars were fought before guns appeared, several cases of genocide took place with nary a gun involved. And, for that matter, the death camps of the holocaust were created precisely because guns were too slow and inefficient when it came to mass slaughter. And even today, if we exclude the street crimes of our cities, many assaults and murders still take place without guns. Guns can kill, but so can nearly any object you can name, some with considerable efficiency.

** Then again, in our times, when "health" has become almost a cult, smoking strangely produces feelings almost as strong as genocide. Speaking as a sinister smoker, I can attest the angry looks I receive simply by passing someone on the street while smoking. I have often commented I would get more sympathy for smoking crack than smoking a cigarette.

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POSTSCRIPT

Regarding the ability of guns to level differences, there was an interesting email making the round a short while ago, which I will reproduce here:

"The Gun Is Civilization" by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force.Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories,without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some. When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender. There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly. Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable. When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

I suppose, in one way, this undercuts my argument that guns are just like any other good, as it makes guns unique. On the other hand, I think, speaking objectively, the uniqueness of guns is still not enough to reasonably differentiate them from other goods. As the only differences from other possible lethal weapons are positive, it hardly argues in favor of imposing additional restrictions upon them.