Afraid of Guns?

If you haven’t read this essay it is worth a few minutes of your time.  It is about a logical and thoughtful explanation of freedom and guns.  It is not particularly emotional and most certainly not partisan.  It is just a logical look at the need for common sense, discipline and the implicit limits that a gun provides.  After you have completed it please read on and we will explain why we present this essay on our pages which deal mostly with fiscal responsibility and living within our means.

"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 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 drunken 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.
 

Ask yourself who will oppose the logic of the above essay.   Who will either dismiss its logic or simply not read it?  Refuse to even consider it?  The answer, of course, are those who are taken with the concept of a benevolent state looking out for the interests of its citizens.  A large state.  A generous state.  With many facets; many outreaches; many really good people and programs and ideas.

Who else might you find in that camp? 

The state bureaucracies, of course.  The bureaucracies wish to be the only ones with guns.  They don’t like citizens with guns. They like unfettered access to the power.  They don't like citizens to have equal power much less greater power because of their numbers.

Now ask yourself who promotes generous government programs with large budgets?  Who thinks there is always room for one more tax idea or a few more percentage points added to the existing tax programs?  Who thinks if you can’t tax to support the programs you can always borrow.  Who doesn’t seem to be concerned about debt?   The state and its bureaucracies, of course.  (By the way, please note that our masthead now includes the most significant pronouncement to come from an American military leader since George Washington told the congress to cool it, he didn’t want to be king (serve for life.)

So here is a thought you may wish to consider.  Your right to a gun has nothing to do with killing or hurting someone.  It has to do with not killing and not hurting someone because it has to do with your ability to function without fear or with, at least, limits on fear.  The same is true of debt.  If you are burdened with debt you live in fear.  If you are debt free there is no debt fear.  The same people who want you to walk the streets in fear of bad guys and bullies and bureaucrats also want you to carry a large burden of debt fear.  It is just one more form of control – flowing to them and away from you.

Vote for anyone who will lower debt. They will also support your right to have a gun.  Don’t vote for anyone who plays on fear.  That is our modest suggestion.  Thank you.