One of the arguments against gun ownership goes something like this: “Given that we have the police and the military to protect us, why do non-police and non-military citizens need guns?” I have several answers to that question, but here is the one that I feel most viscerally.

The fundamental role of the police and the military is to do violence, or to use the potential to do violence, to accomplish societal and political ends, such as the reduction of crime or defending the country against an invading military force. I believe that it is immoral to expect another person to do violence on my behalf if I am capable of, but not willing to do that violence myself.

Ultimately, one thing that keeps me “safe” from crime is acts of violence or the threat of such acts against criminals and potential criminals. In as much as I reap the benefits of that safety, I feel morally obligated to participate in creating that safety. Since guns are an effective means of doing that, I want access to them. I am capable of defending myself. If I were to rely solely on others to keep me safe, I would feel like I was leeching off the system and not living up to my personal standards for how I want to contribute to society.

Putting violence exclusively in the hands of the government has practical down-sides as well. Very few of us are currently directly involved in the creation of our own food. In keeping with the specialization that occurs in large civilizations, we have outsourced the creation of food to a few of us. This means that there is a vast distance between the production of the food and its consumption. Because we are disconnected from and unaware of the processes that produce our food, those processes can evolve in a direction that we would not tolerate if we were more aware of them. We end up eating food that is worse for us, or that destroys the environment in its production. By putting guns exclusively in the hands of the government, we would be doing the same thing for the ability to do violence, with similarly disastrous results.

The food production analogy is not perfect. If I don’t like the way that food is produced, I can grow my own. But giving guns exclusively to the government would be like saying, “Only the government can give you food. You can’t have a backyard garden. You can’t raise a pig and slaughter it yourself. You are not allowed to own hoes and rakes and seeds.” For a government to deny its citizens one of the most fundamental human rights–the right to feed themselves–would be inhumane. The right to effectively defend one’s self, with violence if necessary, is no less a fundamental human right, and it is no less inhumane for a government to deny its citizens access to firearms.