Guns and Information

Guns and information have at least one thing in common: controversy on how to control them. In both cases, there are two major camps. The first group distributes control to everyone. If everyone has a gun, then an unscrupulous individual can’t hurt a lot of people before being stopped. Likewise, if everyone has information, then organizations lose the power to control people through ignorance. The second view on control is to limit control to just a few people. For guns, making it hard to get a gun limits the number of unscrupulous individuals who obtain one. For information, limiting access decreases the likelihood that the information will be misused.

Another way to frame this issue is trust. Those who distribute control trust the general public to make the best decision. This is problematic because it is essentially trusting the average citizen who, statistically, will know little about any given issue. Giving someone a gun is different than teaching him how to use it. On the other hand, limiting information is trusting a minority to make the best decision. This is also problematic because the motivations of a minority are unlikely to line up perfectly with yours. For example, a business’s first priority is getting money. Protecting your personal information is secondary to that. If selling your information became more cost effective than maintaining your loyalty, the business would probably sell your information. In the end, most people would probably prefer to trust themselves over either the public or a minority. Unfortunately, for information and guns, that isn’t usually an option. Unless you happen to be part of the small minority controlling the guns or information, you have to pick either the minority or the public to make the final decision. As for me, I chose to trust the minority. Even if the minority doesn’t have my best interests at heart, at least they are more likely to have researched the issue.