WHY THE GUN IS CIVILIZATION
{ Forwarded By
Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret) }
However it has been brought to our attention that the true
author can be found at,
http://munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-gun-is-civilization.html
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 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 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.
