But bringing this back to Crunch's assertion of an unlimited right to self-defense, I'm not sure how an argument for such a thing can be coherently framed. I can understand it as something that someone might arrogate to themselves, but if one attempts (again, as I generally do) to frame it in reverse as a public obligation, it very rapidly appears monstrous.
To avoid a protracted rabbit hole (and assuming I'm invited to continue my own line while Crunch may separately engage in his) I'll just focus on this. If we use the two maneuvers mentioned above (1) frame it as an agreement amongst enlightened people, rather than as a baked-in fact of the universe, and (2) reverse the direction so that it's an obligation toward others rather than something one demands for oneself, then we could get to this perhaps: that a
right to self-defense should properly be called the obligation to ensure that your neighbor is not rendered helpless against his will. This would give room for a few cases:
-Your neighbor does not want to physically protect or defend himself. In this case being rendered helpless would not be against such a person's will. Then you need do nothing. Let's call this person a pacifist.
-Your neighbor would like to be able to physically fend off aggressors as the case may be; in this case your duty would be to ensure he is not restrained from doing so (by law, by physical force, or by threat). Let's call this person a pragmatist.
The third case is curious:
-Your neighbor does not want to engage in violence at all, nor does he want violence employed against him. In short he doesn't want to be helpless, and also doesn't want to have to use force.
In case #3 your neighbor cannot be allowed to be rendered
incapable of defending himself, but as his priority is to avoid violence entirely you would need to additionally (as your neighborly duty) take steps to avoid on his behalf any aggression. And this neighbor we might call an enlightened thinker, in the sense that he doesn't want the problem framed in terms of who can do violence to whom.
And I think there is room here to argue that the "right to self-defense" framed with the initial 2 criteria (social agreement, and duty) could therefore possibly get us to a destination where it becomes your obligation and duty to your neighbor to see to it that threats to people in general are minimized. So rather than it being an in-person duty that takes place in a physical scenario, it would become a duty related to systemic operation in the society. So long as you are ensuring the person is not rendered helpless against their will I would say this fulfills the obligation toward that person's physical security. That the person in question may or may not wield actual weapons in the process would be incidental and not core to this proposition.
If we see it this way then the 'right to bear arms' would only be a special case of the obligation to your neighbor's physical security from attack, where there are scenarios you cannot help with. So it would be a pragmatic band-aid. Like for instance, even if the society was a utopia one could not account for the odd lunatic who acted irrationally even though he had everything he wanted. In such cases he might attack someone else for no discernable reason, and the person assailed might feel incapable of defending himself without a weapon.
But let's look for a moment at the more likely argument: that a person wants to defend themselves with firearms because they actually do not trust their neighbor to fulfill their duty to assure their safety. The recent school shooting where the police stood by and did nothing would be an example of a loss of public trust in the general notion that 'someone' is looking out for them. And in Crunch's defense, it's difficult to define how much of the stated 'right to self-defense' exists in context of a general lack of trust in others to do what's right. If that's true then it means this right, if it is a social agreement, can't be defined in a vacuum.
