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WHY THE GUN IS CIVILIZATION

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Boston:
Dear fellow Wyomingites,

Some folks have wondered aloud why many FSWers prefer to daily
wear their handguns.  The below essay explains very well why.

If anyone would counter with "Personal arms are not necessary in Wyoming
because violent crime here is nearly nonexistent" -- they should ask themselves:
Then why do we still need the police?

You're several more times likely, in your lifetime, to need a handgun to deal with
a lethal threat than you are to need fire insurance on your home . . . yet more
people carry fire insurance than carry a gun. 

I don't understand that.

Regards,
Boston






--- Quote ---WHY THE GUN IS CIVILIZATION


By Marco Kloos

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.

[BTP NOTE:  According to David Friedman, author of
The Machinery of Freedom,  there is also a third category: 
Love (includes affection, friendship, etc.)]

 
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.
--- End quote ---

bobcat:
HERE, HERE!  Plainspoken, clearly and simply put argument.  Most effective.  One for the archives.

Thanks for the post, Boston.

A simple thought:
If one applies the typical liberal 'victimization' argument(s) to firearms ownership and use after reading this article, one has to wonder why liberals don't ENDORSE the ownership of firearms.  Wouldn't that help to EQUALIZE folks?  Hmmmm?

Because most liberals do not subscribe to individual citizens owning firearms, I can only conclude that those liberals are simply interested in controlling the citizen into submission.

Jared:
We had a little bit of discussion about this, but it sort of fell off over attribution of the work -- http://www.fundamentalsoffreedom.com/fswforum//index.php?topic=4681.0

Paul Bonneau:

--- Quote ---Then why do we still need the police?
--- End quote ---

Well, we don't.  ;)

It might be a bit of a stretch to say the gun is civilization, since civilizations existed before guns. But I'd say the gun is freedom. Only personal arms, and the will to use them when needed, can make people free.

MamaLiberty:

--- Quote from: Paul Bonneau on August 29, 2007, 12:52:54 PM ---It might be a bit of a stretch to say the gun is civilization, since civilizations existed before guns. But I'd say the gun is freedom. Only personal arms, and the will to use them when needed, can make people free.

--- End quote ---

Seems to me that the gun is simply the latest, most universally available tool for this purpose. But from the time the very first weapon was created - maybe since people got the idea to throw rocks to defend themselves - some people have always worked hard to keep others disarmed and subjected. Those two have always gone hand in hand.

Remember the reason many orientals used nothing but chopsticks for centuries?

Free men and women are armed, slaves are not. A few hundred years from now the gun will probably be considered a quaint antique, and something else will have taken its place. But free men and women will still be armed and ready to take personal responsibility for their lives and property - regardless of the tool they use. That is civilization.

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