Exclusive HOLI Discounts!
Get Courses and Combos at Upto 50% OFF!
Upgrad
LCI Learning

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share on LinkedIn

Share on Email

Share More

Democratic Indian (n/a)     11 March 2012

Why the gun is civilization

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 gangbanger, and a single 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 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 bl**dy 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 weightlifter. 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.

 

Source: https://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/why-the-gun-is-civilization/

 

One of the comments by readers I found to be true as well in the above links:

Like Mao said, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." In a repressive totalitarian system, the folks who hold power always make sure that they're the only ones who can bear arms. They do this so they don't have to bother with reason when convincing everyone to get along with the program, skipping straight to force. (People who don't have reason on their side always favor force, of course.)That's probably a big subconscious factor in why so many Leftists are against guns in the hands of the citizenry (and not a small number of right-wingers as well, although they tend to deny the RKBA to specific undesirable groups, not everyone.)




Learning

 2 Replies

N.K.Assumi (Advocate)     11 March 2012

It is the Colonial legacy of prohibiting the right to bear arms and is still continuing, and see what is happening with the innocent citizen who are cotroled by the armed cadres through out India.We should learn from other countries where it is very hard to get medicines but very easy to get arms. " Awise man changes his mind, a fool never will".

1 Like

Democratic Indian (n/a)     11 March 2012

It is a fact that even though our Constitution recognizes arms to be a fundamental right under Articles 19 and 21, we still have that repressive and corrupt colonial system started by British, that is why the corrupt people with colonial mindset in the government or outside have a problem with idea of armed citizen.



Leave a reply

Your are not logged in . Please login to post replies

Click here to Login / Register