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 societ y 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 f ight, 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.
