Human beings only have two
ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something
for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or 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 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 personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to
some.
When I carry a gun, you
cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and 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 a
single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats.
The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, 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 be more civilized if all guns were removed from society,
because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of
course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed
either by choice or by legislative fiat – it has no validity when most of a
mugger’s potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the
banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many,
and that’s the exact 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 the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in
injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved,
confrontations are won by the 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 level.
The gun is the only weapon
that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is 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 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 carrying a gun is a civilized act.
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