range. For defense of the home, that’srnwhy we have poHce departments.”rnLikewise, Professor M.L. Friedland ofrnthe University of Toronto, father ofrnCanada’s modern gun legislation, arguedrnthatrna person who wishes to possess arnhandgun should have to give a legitimaternreason. . . . To protect lifernor property .. . should not be arnvalid reason…. Citizens shouldrnrely on the police, security guards,rnand alarm systems for protection.rnIn the eyes of some gun-prohibition advocates,rnthe right to life itself must bernsubjugated to “civilization.” The laternDavid Clarke, then-president of Washington,rnD.C.’s City Council, told thernWashingtonian that his efforts to outlawrngun ownership for self-defense were “designedrnto move this government towardrncivilization. . . . I don’t intend to run therngovernment around the moment of survival.”rnSimply put, many advocates of gunrncontrol are not especially concernedrnwith whether it saves lives. Sun’ey datarnconsistently show that about half of allrngun control supporters do not believernthat stricter laws will have an impact onrncrime or violence. (For more on this topic,rnsee Cary Kleck’s new book. TargetingrnGuns.)rnThe idea that it would be better forrnsomeone to die than to use force to defendrnherself was explicitly stated in testimonyrnbefore Congress by a representativernof the largest denomination of thernPresbyterian Church. The idea is alsornimplicit in that church’s recent call to itsrnmembers to get rid of all handguns inrntheir homes. But this odd form of selectivernmandatory pacifism (which, accordingrnto the gun control lobbies, shouldrnonly apply to people who don’t work forrnthe government) explains some but notrnall of the anti-gun sentiment. One of thernsocial uses of gun control is that, even ifrnit does nothing to make anyone any safer,rnit provides psychological benefits tornsome people by symbolically controllingrnthe world’s dangers.rnTo understand some of the roots of thernanti-gun movement, read E.P. Evans’rnThe Criminal Prosecution and CapitalrnPunishment of Animals: The Lost Historyrnof Europe’s Animal Trials. As Evans details,rnin early modern European lawrnthere was an extensive system for legalrnpunishment of animals. If a pig killed arnbaby or a swarm of locusts ate a crop, thernanimals would be charged with legal offenses.rnThev would be defended by arncourt-appointed lawyer who would usernall of the ordinary tools of law; in one famousrncase, the lawyer appointed to defendrnrats who had eaten the region’s barleyrnargued successfully that the ratsrncould not be prosecuted because the legalrnnodce of prosecution had not beenrnpublicized widely enough to encompassrnall the areas where the rats lived.rnOnce a court obtained proper jurisdichon,rnthe animals were usually but notrnalways convicted. Animal defendantsrnwhom the court could apprehend, suchrnas domestic pigs, would often be torturedrnto death, just as human criminals were.rnNicholas Humphrey’s foreword to thern1906 edition of Evans’ book suggests thatrnthe people who executed pigs did not believernthat pigs could form criminal intentrnor be deterred by the punishment ofrntheir fellows. Rather, he argues that peoplernwere terrified by the seemingly randomrnnature of bad events, which impliedrnthat perhaps there was no order tornthe universe. Thus, the purpose of punishingrnanimalsrnwas to establish cognitive control.rn. .. The job of the courts was to domesticaternchaos, and to impose orderrnon a world of accidents—andrnspecifically to make sense of certainrnseemingly inexplicable eventsrnby redefining them as crimes.. ..rnThe child’s death became explicable.rnThe child had died as an actrnof calculated wickedness, and howeverrnawful that still was, at least itrnmade some kind of sense.rnWhile punishing animals was popularrnon the Continent, punishing inanimaternobjects was more popular in England (asrnit had been in ancient Creece). If arncriminal killed someone with a sword,rnthe sword would be forfeited. If a manrnfell from a tree, the tree was cut down. Ifrnhe drowned in a well, the well was filledrnup. If a criminal killed a victim with arnthird party’s sword, “the sword shall bernforfeit as deodand, and yet no default isrnin the owner,” According to OliverrnWendell Holmes, Jr., a steam-enginernwas even forfeited under this doctrine.rnThe legal term “deodand” meant arngift to Cod of the object causing death.rnIn early America, one court ordered therndestruction of a canoe that had failed “tornmake way in a storm,” causing its owner’srndeath. A Virginia court ordered thernchain by which a boy had hanged himselfrnto be forfeit as deodand. Similarly, inrnancient Creece, a statue that fell onrnsomeone would be banished beyond therncity limits.rnThe tradition of punishing non-humansrnis very old; Exodus 21:28 commands,rn”If an ox gore a man or a womanrnand they die, then the ox shall surely bernstoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten.”rnIf the sole purpose for this ordinancernwere to remove a dangerous animal fromrnthe community, there would be no mandaternto treat oxen like human criminalsrndeserving community punishment norrnwould there be any injunction againstrneating the animal’s flesh.rnProsecuting pigs and banishingrnswords may seem primitive to late 20thcenturyrnpostmodern Americans, but itrnwould be unwise for us to feel too superiorrnto our predecessors. In Chicago andrnPhiladelphia, a relatively small numberrnof people (mostly single young malesrnwith no father figure in their lives) commitrna large number of predator)’ violentrncrimes, sometimes with guns. The “solution”rnbeing seriously considered byrnPhiladelphia Mayor Rendell and ChicagornMayor Daley is to sue the manufacturersrnof firearms.rnAlbert Cohen described this phenomenonrnas the “evil causes evil fallacy,”rnthe belief that bad consequences mustrnhave bad causes. Perhaps it is easier torntrace America’s problems to “wicked”rnobjects like guns or drugs, rather than tornconsider the depressing possibility thatrnAmerica may include a large number ofrnwicked people.rnThe desire to blame never changes,rnbut the expression of the desire is highlyrnvariable. In the earlier part of this century,rnthe blame for a criminal’s commissionrnof a violent act with a gun wouldrnhave been placed primarily on the criminalrnhimself, and secondarily on the biologicalrnfather who abandoned the motherrnnot long after conception. But today,rnmany people seem to believe that humanrnbeings are helpless automatons whorncannot be held responsible for their actions.rnInstead, responsibility must bernplaced on physical objects such asrnfirearms, which apparently embody thernmoral flaws that can no longer be attributedrnto people.rnDave Kopel is the research director of thernIndependence Institute, a free-marketrnthink tank in Colorado.rn48/CHRONICLESrnrnrn