Critical Analysis Of John Tunick's Right To Bear Arms

In his introduction, Tunick opposes a frequently occurring claim concerning the United States and the second amendment where many American scholars including the courts themselves believe the right to bear arms for self-defence and to defend against tyranny is “so fundamental that no state may violate it without sufficient justification,” as “Locke is still intractably America’s philosopher.” Tunick also covers other opposing arguments, acknowledging existing justifications of why Locke may seem to be in favour of the right to bear arms, including the fact that he is a classical liberal, which the author agrees with, who relies on the government to be an device used for preserving life and property. The manner in which Tunick tackles these

Tunick cites Dunn’s position saying that he “simply cannot conceive of constructing an analysis of any issue in contemporary political theory around the affirmation or negation of anything which Locke says about political matters” due to its lack of relevance to present day. However as Tunick rightly points out in a footnote of the article, Dunn later changed his position and supports using Locke’s work in modern day issues, in accordance with Tunick, claiming that “It is primarily as an ideologue that we cannot let Locke rest even now in the massive peace of historical indifference. “ The accentuating of Dunn’s modified point of view works in Tunick’s favour as it provides supplementary support to his

It also resolves a fundamental question that can be raised to criticise the validity of using Locke’s work to discuss the right to bear