The Gun As An Equilizer

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  • inman

    New Member
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    Apr 10, 2008
    19
    1
    Dallas
    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 footin g with a 220-pound
    mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old
    gang banger, and a single gay 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 poten tial 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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