  One response to these arguments is that criminal law does not always censure or stigmatize. Another is that the arguments rely on priority claims that cannot be sustained. The argument from conviction depends on our accepting that moral defamation cannot be justified. The argument from punishment depends on our accepting that those who do not act wrongly have an absolute right not to be punished. These claims may be too strong. To test the second, think again about possession of guns. Imagine that we criminalize possession, and that we have good reason to think that we can thereby save many lives. \(D\) possesses a gun safely because \(D\) likes how it looks hanging on the wall. We can grant that \(D\) would act wrongly if \(D\)’s conduct risked harm to others, or prevented the state from saving others’ lives. But as \(D\)’s possession is safe, and the state has in fact criminalized possession, neither is the case. Would the state violate \(D\)’s rights if it punished \(D\)? It is plausible to think not. \(D\) could very easily have refrained from possessing the gun. And if the state were to refrain from punishing safe possessors like \(D\), more people would be likely to possess guns in the mistaken belief that this was safe. This would likely result in some lives being lost. The fact that not punishing safe possessors would probably have this effect is a good reason to think that safe possessors lack a valid complaint if they are punished.  It is a good reason to think that it sometimes is permissible to punish the morally innocent. If it is, premise (3) of the argument from punishment is false (Tadros 2016, 329–333).