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Monday, December 24, 2012

"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 an 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.

By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maj. Caudill, if I may offer a teaching I had in the last few years. There are two ways to live; one in Fear, and the other in Love. This is the basis of each decision in life. Are our decisions made from Love, or are they made in Fear.

May I propose that everything you wrote here could still ring true by substituting Love for reason, and Fear for force?

Read this all again with the substitution, and more folks may be reached out to? Or not, but I don;t see much difference!

Merry Christmas, and thank you.

Queensgirl52 said...

In honor of the birth of Jesus, could we drop the gun glorification just for the day?

Anonymous said...

We sleep soundly at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf...but I don't think it's wrong for society to limit who gets to be a "rough man.". Merry Christmas.

Anonymous said...

well thank you 10:00 for the readers digest condensed version of that great quote, for those of us WITH brains enough to resist "society's" shackles, i offer this complete and correct version: "WE SLEEP SAFE IN OUR BEDS BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY IN THE NIGHT TO VISIT VIOLENCE ON THOSE WHO WOULD DO US HARM".

Anonymous said...

10:56, you add nothing to the discussion with your pedantry

Anonymous said...

We sleep soundly at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf...but I don't think it's wrong for society to limit who gets to be a "rough man.". Merry Christmas.

December 25, 2012 10:00 AM

You just don't get it do ya?

Read this all again with the substitution, and more folks may be reached out to? Or not, but I don;t see much difference!

Merry Christmas, and thank you.

December 25, 2012 12:10 AM

Always somebody who just has to one up the other guy. But you failed this time.

Queensgirl52 said...
In honor of the birth of Jesus, could we drop the gun glorification just for the day?

December 25, 2012 8:40 AM

Obviously not, but you don't have to come to this thread. Merry Christmas.

The major is correct. I would take the word and experience of a Marine before I would of some namby pamby. If people don't want to arm themselves that's fine. But why try to force that on everyone?