Reason or Force

[nancy1340]

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 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 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 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.


Marko:
http://munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-gun-is-civilization.html

[RangerRick]

Yep, sounds about right.

Rick

[DavidOH]

Reasonable :)

[WileyCoyote]

All so very true. Cops say that the most dangerous cop is a small female one - because she already knows that the rest of the world is bigger, usually aggressively male, and will try to intimidate her through physical force. Therefore she is the quickest to use a gun to stop violence before it starts.

As a short female, I have had men in business and in my personal life try to use their size and maleness to intimidate me. As an educated and outspoken woman with a sharp incisive sense of humor, I can usually put these people in their place instantly. However, there are those who simply resort to physically trying to overpower me. For these, I have taken self defense courses, and for extreme exigency, I carry a gun.

Reason is always a great theory, and good initially as a practice. But preparation for violence in the absence of reason, or the potential deterioration into violence, is simple common sense.

[bookwormom]

all so true.
the most reasonable man can't live in peace if his bad neighbor is not so inclined.

[jlmissouri]

I agree, a very valid point.

[wax]

Nancy- If both are armed, the field is level.

Wax- Good post and well tested ideas.

However, Colt did not make men equal... or perhaps it would be better to say that some men will always be more equal than others.

Gun possession negates violence without thought; it negates predatory advantage.
Yet predatory nature remains.

We have good data concerning both support for your total overall arguement and argues against the "level field" statement.

Between 1860 and 1900 guns were normally carried in the open in America from the Mississippi Valley west (with noted exceptions of certain towns and larger cities).
While popular media likes to pretend that there shootouts in the steets every day in every small town it simply isn't true.

Believe it or not people were very polite to each other!
And they were polite for good reason, because being rude was a very bad idea indeed.
Yet 99.99% never threatened anyone with a firearm.
They didn't have to, the guns were simply there hanging from a hip.

What we know as rudeness and threatening behavior today was very different back then. Language was "rough" but insults were actually very discrete compared to today and for good reason... you never knew if a stranger would prove inequality!

Wild Bill Hickock is well known for a reason.
He was living proof that the field was not equal.
He was one of the few gunmen who actually faced down a foe in a classic Hollywood drawing contest.
Most gun violence was quick and very unorganized.
But one day Wild Bill was walking down a street and announced to a man that he was about to die.
The other man drew and fired but Bill put a bullet through his heart first.
Why...
The man was wearing a watch that Bill told him not to (taken from Bill in a card game and Bill planned to buy it back).

The odd thing is that by today's standards wearing a mortgaged watch would not normally be considered a reason to initiate killing someone.
If everyone is armed, it does become an issue of self defense.
Any affront could initiate violence and any violence must be considered deadly.

But as I stated, too many gun-haters over-estimate the actual occurance of that initiation of violence.

There will always be some men who are better at using a tool like a firearm. And more importantly "willing" to use them.
I have seen men calmly look past a firearm to their head and explain to the holder that they are not really in control of the situation. And the fact is that they weren't!

Overall the open carry of firearms insures a rapid decrease in violence. It is a measurable fact.
But there will always be a certain percentage of society which is "more equal" concerning violent action.

BTW: Wild Bill was shot in the back of the head but he was a very different man then than in his earlier life.
Wyatt Earp and men like John Wesley Hardin prove Hickocks example whether he eventually "lost" or not.