Tuesday 11 August 2015

Amnesty on Guns






I’ve done a lot of reading recently to educate myself about the arguments for and against Amnesty’s decision to decriminalise both selling and buying sex. I'm not comfortable with the phrases 'selling sex' or 'buying sex' because I'm not sure you can. Many people have written about whether you can make free choices in a patriarchal society; I'm not about to attempt to address that here but rather to focus on a parallel that Amnesty has a very clear stance on.

It suddenly occurred to me that a valid comparison can be made between the sex industry and the arms trade.  For the sake of ease, let’s say all weapons are guns.  Putting in caveats about ‘responsible gun ownership’ doesn’t stop people being murdered, moreover, it normalises something that is damaging to society.  Men like to own guns, it makes them feel powerful. Unpicking that is difficult, and the gun lobby are awfully pushy.   
People, including poor people in poor countries, make money from manufacturing guns.  Should we deny them a livelihood? I wonder if Amnesty will now declare their support for the arms industry?

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