Saw this and thought I would share. Yes, our Lord and Saviour told us to turn the other cheek. He also told us to have a sword. His disciples carried weapons. I also know that I am to live peaceably with all men as I am able. I also know that our Lord commended soldiers and his only commands to them was to do no (unjust) violence, to accuse no one falsely and to be content with their wages.
“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 simply deal with me by force. You
have to use reason and try to persuade me," (or you have to resolve to use a higher level of force) "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."
Since a young man (as a trained soldier), I have always looked at a firearm as a tool. Much like a knife, hammer, screw driver etc. A tool. No to be triffled with, respected and used only as required. js
