To Carry A Gun, the Civilized Answer

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 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 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.

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