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Human beings only have two ways to deal
with one another: reason and
force. If you want me to do something, you have the choice of either
convincing me via discussion or argument, or to try to force me to do
your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into
one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's
it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact with
one another through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of
social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu
is the possession of personal arms, as paradoxical as that may sound to
some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use
reason to try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat
or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a
100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old
retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang-banger, and single gay
guy on equal footing with a carload of drunken homophobes with baseball
bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, and/or
numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad
force equations. These are the people who think that we'd all be more
civilized if every gun was removed from society, because firearms make
it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only
true if the mugger's potential victims are disarmed, either by choice or
by legislative fiat. It has no validity when most of mugger's potential
marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for the
automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's exactly
the opposite of a civilized society.
A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a
society
where the state has granted him a force monopoly. Then there's the
argument
that guns make confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result only
in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns, the
confrontation is won by a physically superior party inflicting
overwhelming
injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones
don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take
beatings
and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun
makes
lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the
stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is leveled. The gun is
the
only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as in the
hands
of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer
if
it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am out looking for a fight,
but
because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I
cannot
be forced; only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but
because
it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who
would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would
do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why my
carrying a gun is a civilized act.
article written by
Marko Kloos
http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com
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