The Gun is Civilization

[CHL/LEO]

This Marine has it figured out - especially the last paragraph.

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 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 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 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)

[frankie_the_yankee]

That's a nice essay and I fully agree with but one exception.

The presence of a gun does make some otherwise non-lethal confrontations develop into lethal ones, simply because a gun is a more lethal weapon than a baseball bat, knife, etc. The statistics on this are pretty clear. Sure, those other weapons are lethal. But not as lethal, not as often, and they put the bearer at greater risk of having the weapon wrested from their grasp and used against them (because they are mostly used at contact distance). The experience of the UK in particular bears this out. Much higher violent crime rates than here, but much lower homicide rates too.

But this is far from saying that guns are a bad element to add to the mix, nor does it negate the thesis that the major is presenting. Yes, with guns in the picture, you get more deaths. But with guns in the picture, you also get fewer victims. Far fewer. And that is the key element. With no guns, with the weak at the mercy of the strong, the moral basis of society becomes the moral basis of the jungle.

With guns, as the major so correctly puts it, you remove the ability of the aggressor to affect their potential victim by force or the threat of force. So human interactions are much more often governed by reason.

This is an infinitely higher moral basis for society to be organized around than that of the jungle.

[quidni]

Already discussed in this thread.

Maj. Caudill is not the actual author of this piece, but I think he's at least partly responsible for getting it exposed to a lot of readers who might not have seen it otherwise.

[frankie_the_yankee]

Already discussed in this thread.

Maj. Caudill is not the actual author of this piece, but I think he's at least partly responsible for getting it exposed to a lot of readers who might not have seen it otherwise.

Maybe so, but nothing in that thread addressed my point.

The presence of a gun does make some otherwise non-lethal confrontations develop into lethal ones, simply because a gun is a more lethal weapon than a baseball bat, knife, etc. The statistics on this are pretty clear. Sure, those other weapons are lethal. But not as lethal, not as often, and they put the bearer at greater risk of having the weapon wrested from their grasp and used against them (because they are mostly used at contact distance). The experience of the UK in particular bears this out. Much higher violent crime rates than here, but much lower homicide rates too.

But this is far from saying that guns are a bad element to add to the mix, nor does it negate the thesis that the major is presenting. Yes, with guns in the picture, you get more deaths. But with guns in the picture, you also get fewer victims. Far fewer. And that is the key element. With no guns, with the weak at the mercy of the strong, the moral basis of society becomes the moral basis of the jungle.

With guns, as the major so correctly puts it, you remove the ability of the aggressor to affect their potential victim by force or the threat of force. So human interactions are much more often governed by reason.