This is made in philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

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Guns can of course be lethal and frequently are, but the same can be said about cars.

Is there a better argument for controlling private ownership of guns than there is for cars?

Many law-abiding Americans believe that they have a moral right to own firearms, even automatics.

Jeff McMahon, like most philosophers, denies this.

No surprise is there.

But he believes that philosophers should take the trouble to show the gun lobby why they're wrong.

Philosophy Bites examines the caliber of his arguments.

Jeff McMahon, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you.

The topic we're talking about today is gun control. Now I guess the most trivial

reason people give for wanting to own guns is for sporting purposes. They want

to hunt, they want, shoot targets.

That's right, and I think that's a major motivation of most of the grassroots supporters of the National

Rifle Association in the United States.

In my view, these are not very strong reasons

for recognizing a right of private gun ownership.

Two reasons for that.

One is that target shooting in ranges and clay pigeon shooting with shotguns and so on

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