The Gun is Civilization

[Deacon Will]

The Gun is Civilization

 

by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

 

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

persuading me, or forcing 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. The greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and

can only be persuaded, never forced.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Literature and architecture, too....

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

Thanks Deacon Will for posting that.

 

GG ~