What Do You Think?

From an email I received.

As the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the Chicago gun
ban, this Marine offered a letter that places the proper perspective
on what a gun means to a civilized society.

Interesting take and one you don't hear much. . . . . .
Read this eloquent and profound letter and pay close attention to the
last paragraph of the letter....

"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 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 an [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.)

So, the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally
armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.