Opinion: Self-defense is a fundamental moral right, so access to effective tools of self-defense—especially firearms—is also a fundamental moral right.
The contemporary debate over firearms rights in the United States often presumes that the Second Amendment confers a negative right, prohibiting the state from disarming citizens.
Yet negative-liberty framing tells only part of the story. Underlying the jurisprudential debates in District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen lies a deeper moral question: whether there is a positive moral right to keep and bear arms, one that entails not merely the absence of interference but the presence of enabling conditions necessary for meaningful self-defense.
I will argue here that there is such a positive moral right. Rooted in the fundamental right to life and bodily integrity, the permissibility of defensive force, and republican notions of non-domination, the moral claim to keep and bear firearms is not exhausted by a minimalist libertarian account. It imposes correlative obligations on the state, on communities, and on individual right-holders.
Political theorists commonly distinguish negative rights, i.e., claims against interference, from positive rights, i.e., claims to assistance or provision. Isaiah Berlin’s classic framework conceptualizes negative liberty as freedom from constraints and positive liberty as the capacity to act in pursuit of one’s goals. Subsequent scholarship refines the distinction: positive rights need not require maximal state assistance but impose some duties to enable effective exercise of a protected interest, in this case, a Right.
Legal rights are institutionalized entitlements that are enforceable through courts or public institutions; moral rights, on the other hand, arise from ethical principles that are independent of legal recognition. A positive moral right, therefore, exists when individuals are morally entitled to social or institutional support in securing something necessary for the full exercise of an underlying moral interest, such as life, autonomy, or self-defense.
Positive rights exist on a spectrum. A modest positive right may require the state to avoid erecting unreasonable barriers to access; a robust positive right may obligate the state to subsidize or provide goods. The positive moral right to firearms argued here is modest: it requires meaningful access to defensive arms and reasonable pathways for responsible ownership, not universal state provision.
The moral theories recognize a right to defend oneself against unjust aggression. If individuals have a right to preserve their own lives, and if firearms are in many situations an effective and uniquely effective means of doing so, then individuals hold a prima facie positive moral claim to access such means. Restricting access without adequate justification could therefore violate a core aspect of the right to life.
Philosophical analyses of self-defense underscore that the moral permissibility of defensive force presupposes access to effective means. Where the state cannot provide perfect or immediate protection, denying access to defensive tools may undermine the individual’s ability to exercise the moral right to self-defense. From this vantage point, firearms function as enabling conditions for an underlying moral right.
A republican conception of liberty identifies freedom with the absence of domination, the condition of not being subject to another’s arbitrary will. Private arms can serve as a check on domination by criminals and, in extreme contexts, by the state itself. While this function is often overstated in political rhetoric, its moral logic is coherent: if meaningful autonomy requires some capacity for resistance to coercion, and if firearms are part of that capacity, the claim to them carries positive moral weight.
American tradition has long connected arms-bearing with civic responsibility and popular sovereignty. Early republican thinkers viewed an armed citizenry as a bulwark against tyranny and an alternative to dependence on standing armies. While historical tradition alone does not supply a moral argument, it situates the U.S. debate within a civic ideal in which firearms ownership carries not merely private but public significance.
This historical layer strengthens the claim that access to arms has moral salience in American political culture. It also influences constitutional interpretation, providing a backdrop for the jurisprudence discussed below.
A. Heller and the Individual Right
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense, invalidating the District’s near-total ban. The Court rooted the right in both the Constitution’s text and the centrality of self-defense to Anglo-American law.
Importantly, Heller identified self-defense as the core of the right. If self-defense is the foundational purpose, then the right’s force depends on meaningful access to tools suited to that purpose, a point resonant with positive-rights reasoning.
B. Bruen and the Historical-Tradition Test
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court rejected interest-balancing tests and required that firearm regulations be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition. Bruen expanded protection for individuals seeking to carry firearms outside the home and invalidated regimes requiring special need beyond self-defense.
Bruen’s methodology does not explicitly speak in positive-rights terms, but its emphasis on meaningful exercise of the right reinforces the idea that access cannot be burdened to the point of nullification.
C. The Interaction of Morality and Doctrine
Moral arguments do not dictate constitutional outcomes, but where doctrine aligns with moral considerations here, self-defense, the moral theory can illuminate the normative grounding of legal protections. Heller and Bruen thus provide a legal structure congruent with the moral argument advanced here, though not identical to it.
What does a positive moral right require? It requires Non-Arbitrary Access, Reasonable Availability, Equity Considerations, and Safety-Oriented Complementary Duties.
Non-Arbitrary Access is a positive moral right requirement that the state avoid regulations that effectively destroy access to defensive firearms for ordinary, law-abiding citizens. Background checks, training, and licensing may be consistent with the right, but arbitrary or excessively burdensome barriers are not. (NOTE: This author does NOT agree with background checks or licensing, but self-training should constantly occur. Background checks virtually no criminals, while it does open a door for governmental list creation. And licensing also permits governmental list creation and is only a very small part of the historical groundwork.)
Reasonable Availability is mandatory for the state, which MUST preserve viable pathways for acquiring defensive arms. This does not imply free provision but may imply that the state cannot impose prohibitive fees or delays that disproportionately burden the poor or marginalized.
Equity Considerations is the positive-rights framework that highlights equity: if only the affluent can afford the means of self-defense, the moral right becomes class-stratified. Policies thus ought to consider how cost and regulatory burdens affect disadvantaged communities.
Safety-Oriented Complementary Duties are needed because positive rights involve correlative responsibilities; the state may permissibly require training, safe storage, responsible handling, and measures aimed at reducing illegal diversion. A moral right to defensive arms includes a moral duty to use and store them responsibly. (NOTE: This author personally believes that training, safe storage, responsible handling, etc., are NOT the responsibilities of the state. They belong to the individual, and the failure of these does have consequences.)
A positive moral right to keep and bear firearms in the United States is defensible when grounded in the moral rights to life, self-defense, autonomy, and non-domination. Unlike a purely negative liberty interest, this right entails duties, not only to refrain from undue interference, but to maintain conditions that make meaningful defensive access always possible.
Recognizing a positive moral right does not require laissez-faire absolutism. It instead reframes the debate around responsible access, equitable regulation where needed, and evidence-based policy.
REFERENCES:
- Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, in Four Essays on Liberty (1969).
- Hillel Steiner, An Essay on Rights (1994)
- Joseph Raz, On the Nature of Rights, 93 Mind 194 (1984).
- Leif Wenar, Rights, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (rev. 2021).
- Suzanne Uniacke, Permissible Killing: The Self-Defense Justification of Homicide (1994).
- Kimberly Kessler Ferzan & Larry Alexander, Self-Defense and the Limits of Defense, 20 Law & Phil. 1 (2001).
- Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (1997).
- Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right (1994).
- District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).
- N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. ___ (2022).
- “Congress Shall Make No Law” vs. “Shall Not Be Infringed”
- U.S. Second Amendment: Means ALL Weapons & ZERO Infringements
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Alan J. Chwick, A.S., B.S., FL/NY/SC Paralegal is known for his involvement in legal articles usually related to firearm regulations and for his contributions to discussions on gun rights. Retired Managing Coach of the Freeport NY Junior Marksmanship Club (FreeportJuniorClub.org). Escaped New York State to South Carolina and is an SC FFL & Gunsmith (Everything22andMore.com).
AJChwick@iNCNF.org | TWITTER & TRUTHSOCIAL: @iNCNF
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