Carrying a Gun Is an Act of Civilization

[Silent_Bob]

http://granitegrok.com/blog/2011/09/carrying_a_gun_is_an_act_of_civilization.html#more

"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.

[Jim Johnson]

He left out deception; a third way people deal with each other.

[Russell Kanning]

I also want to laugh when a guys carries a gun and thinks noone can use force against him.

[WithoutAPaddle]

There is an episode of the TV show, Criminal Minds, where the geekiest profiler is sporting this holstered gun that is so big it makes him list to that side, and some good ol' boy says to him something like, "When I see a guy who looks like a pipecleaner with a couple of eyeballs attached to it wearing a big gun like that, you can't imagine how tempting it is to just take it from him."

[Alex Libman]

Some of my recent thoughts on guns from the FSP forum:

The government shouldn't restrict ownership of weapons.  Or even exist.

In a free market, property owners would decide what's allowed on/in their property, with many restrictions coming about through charter cities, neighborhood associations, employment / partnership contracts, university contracts, marriage contracts, church / secular ethical society contracts, private road cargo policies, shopping mall policies, etc, etc, etc.  Insurance contracts (life, liability, etc) would be a particularly potent source of restrictions that people place on how they live their lives.  I think both all-power-to-the-state gun-grabbin' commies and go-anywhere-with-a-gun nuts will be disappointed that their values are not universal, but people will be able to move and associate themselves with the institutions that share their values.

The thing that most people fail to understand when they talk about "gun control" is that with 21st century technologies a gun is about 10x easier to manufacture than illegal drugs, and yet illegal drugs can be found everywhere.  Metal-shop equipment, which anyone can hide in the basement, continues to become cheaper, more capable, more precise, and ever-more software-driven - but even that will soon go the way of horse and carriage.  It will someday be possible to literally print powerful plastic guns with a 3D printer, soon to be found in every home!  Just imagine the sort of tyranny governments will have to impose on the Internet to prevent sharing of gun manufacturing software!  All encrypted communications would be outlawed, every packet analyzed, every printer licensed and routinely inspected, etc.  Just imagine the consequences of such a power monopoly!  This is something that a self-selected group of neighbors may be able to tackle, but not an all-powerful state!  And even if you take away all guns, people can still murder with poisons, knives, etc.  The way you achieve security is not by preemptively tying everyone's hands, but with an open, transparent, high-tech justice system where getting away with murder is a total impossibility.  How can anyone get away from billions of integrated AI-coordinated "open source" video cameras and other detection equipment, including satellite tracking?!

Another thing most people fail to understand about guns is that they're a government-created market that hasn't really been adapted to consumer demand.  The overwhelming majority of weapons that exist in the world today are held by governments - that is institutions that don't care all that much about liability.  In a more dynamic market of individuals who don't have any "divine right" to get away with murder, there would be tremendous market pressure to engineer guns that your insurance company will permit you to have without jacking up the costs of your policy.  The obvious technological trend is to make high-tech bullets that are very thin and can pass even through the heart or the brain without being immediately lethal.  Upon penetration, those bullets would deliver a powerful neurotoxin, rendering the victim safely unconscious in an instant, and possibly even disintegrate after exiting the body so as not to hit whoever is standing behind the target.  It would be customary for guns to be equipped with live-streaming cameras, to document that you are indeed acting in self-defense, and they would automatically summon the medics / PDA's as soon as they are fired.  Owning a gun without such precautions would be a huge legal liability.  We would also see a great divergence between offensive and defensive weapons, with offensive ones being very difficult to justify.  Buildings can have defensive technologies like automated double door locks to trap an intruder, security gates to trap a getaway car, remote controlled taser nets or incapacitating gas released from the ceiling, etc, etc, etc.  Unlike a government, a private sector entity cannot get away with stockpiling more weapons than they need for defense-only purposes, and most certainly no private entity could ever afford the liability of owning large weapons that can be used for offensive.  It takes a government to manufacture an expensive offensive weapon like a bomber, much less an aircraft carrier or a nuclear missile!

The camera is the new gun!

So, while I definitely agree that balance of power is a sign of civilization, in most cases old-fashioned crude projectile launchers are no longer the best way to achieve this.

He left out deception; a third way people deal with each other.

Among certain Free Staters it seems to be #1...   

[Silent_Bob]

He left out deception; a third way people deal with each other.

Isn't deception(fraud) a form of force?

[Jim Johnson]

He left out deception; a third way people deal with each other.

Isn't deception(fraud) a form of force?

No.

Thinking of fraud as force confuses words with physical actions.

[Silent_Bob]

He left out deception; a third way people deal with each other.

Isn't deception(fraud) a form of force?

No.

Thinking of fraud as force confuses words with physical actions.

Both interfere with the exercise of free will.

[Jim Johnson]

He left out deception; a third way people deal with each other.

Isn't deception(fraud) a form of force?

No.

Thinking of fraud as force confuses words with physical actions.

Both interfere with the exercise of free will.

When someone lies to you your free will is not affected. 

[MaineShark]

When someone lies to you your free will is not affected.

A lie, in and of itself, is not necessarily fraud.

Fraud is a lie told with the specific intend to cause someone to act in a way contrary to his own interests, such that he suffers damages.

Fraud is a form of force, because it damages you by violating your ability to make an informed exercise of your free will.  No one is obligated to provide you with information, out of the goodness of their heart, but if someone is going out of their way to provide you with false information in order to distort your choices, that crosses the line.

For example, if I take my truck to a mechanic because it has a rattle, and he finds and tightens a loose bolt, that solves the problem, and in no way interfered with my free choices.  If he decides to make a few extra bucks by falsely telling me my ball joints need to be replaced, that's fraud; I would not have chosen to authorize him to replace them, if he had honestly told me there was nothing wrong with them, so his behavior interfered with my free choice, and I suffered damages in the same amount as if he had stolen that extra money from my wallet.

Not all lies are fraud, but those that are fraud, are a form of force, the same as theft is.

Joe

[Jim Johnson]

So what your telling me is that if a mechanic honestly tells you that you need a couple thousand dollar repair, even though he is wrong, he is some how better than the mechanic that gigged you for some ball joints.

Your reasoning is a denial of Caveat Emptor.

Of course fraud is a crime of thieft; but you acted freely on the information that was provided you.  If later you find the information was wrong you can go back and discuss it, which is something you can do with either mechanic.

Words are not violence they are the means for preventing violence.

Words can not force you to do anything; your actions are always subject to your free will.

[MaineShark]

So what your telling me is that if a mechanic honestly tells you that you need a couple thousand dollar repair, even though he is wrong, he is some how better than the mechanic that gigged you for some ball joints.

Yes.  Just like a workman who honestly made a mistake that caused a brick to fall off an overpass and hit your car is better than someone sitting up there dropping rocks on passing cars.

Your reasoning is a denial of Caveat Emptor.

Of course fraud is a crime of thieft; but you acted freely on the information that was provided you.  If later you find the information was wrong you can go back and discuss it, which is something you can do with either mechanic.

Words are not violence they are the means for preventing violence.

Words can not force you to do anything; your actions are always subject to your free will.

I freely drove under that overpass, right?  It was just my assumption that no one would be dropping rocks off it, right?  So he didn't do any violence to me, because it was my free will to trust that rocks would not be falling off that overpass, right?

Words are tools.  They can be used for peace or for violence, just like any other tool.  "I'm going to murder you" is a threat, and an act of violence.  "I'll pay you $10k if you murder him" is just a string of words, but it's still an act of violence.  "There's the guy who raped my daughter" is just words, too, but it could bring about anything from blue-light thugs to a lynch mob, depending upon where it is said, and to whom.

Words are tools.  How they are used is dependent upon the choices and integrity of the user.  Is Bush a murderer?  How about Obama?  To the best of my knowledge, neither of them personally went out and killed a bunch of folks in the Middle East.  They used words to commit those murders.  Many of the worst of the mass-murderers in history used words as their weapon of choice.

And many of the most peaceful people in history have used words as the tool by which they projected their message of peace.  The tool is merely a tool, and can be used for good of for evil.

Joe

[Jim Johnson]

A threat may or may not cause a feeling.  How one responds to those feelings, a quickened heart rate or a clinched fist, is a reaction; a fist striking something can be violent.
If you say something like, that guy should die, and he is later found dead, are you a murder?  No.
Has any resent president, by his own hand, killed a man?  I doubt it; taking part in planing murders makes one culpable as an accessory to murder and I would not fault any one for calling that person a murder.  But his words did not kill, and the actions other men took where of their own free will.  Which is the point of this conversation. 

Words pass through the emptiness between people.  There is no connection in words that magically makes other people do what you want them to do.  You can't lift stones or hurl bullets with words.
As a matter of fact, if you don't know the meaning of a word it has no affect on you what so ever.  Every bit of action has to come from with in you, through your free will.

[Russell Kanning]

get me uh gun

[Jim Johnson]

What if you have a voice activated gun and you say "Shoot at John Doe."?

In fact, with a voice activated robot all of the things you said can't be done suddenly become possible. You can order the robot to lift stones and hurl bullets. The robot is not a person and does not have free will.

So what if they did have dinosaurs and the man from UNCLE, would it still be a big box of Libertarian stupid?