The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Teresa Heilevang on April 17, 2010, 11:36:01 PM
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As the Supreme Court hears arguments for and against the Washington D C Gun Ban, I offer you another stellar example of a letter (written by a Marine) that places the proper perspective on what a gun means to a civilized society.
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 USM C (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. C audill USM C (Ret)
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
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Amen M'lette.
I was strruck by this post as I recently got knocked on my ass by a semi-phychotic guy twenty years younger and forty pounds heaveir than me. Neither of us had a gun. This is the ideal world of the Sarah Brady types. Yet what would the result have been? Me and my aged mother beaten, possibly to death, by a 275 pound body builder who could have wiped the floor with us? I was able to resolve the situation without further violence, through reason, a hot line to 911, and a refusal to back down (cf. "The one day I don't carry a gun" thread on this board). Still, I shouldn't have to spend half my day working out and learning the ninja arts. A gun is the great equalizer. I don't care how big you are, mister Glock/Colt, will handle it. I guess I think that Sarah Brady and the gang bangers are on the same page. Disarm the populace and the people will fall into line. What they refuse to see is that this is a bully's charter. Take away the ability of the physically weak to defend themselves and the physically strong will rule. I am not one for cliche's, but I will close with one. "God made all men. Samuel Colt made them equal". A disarmed society is a feudal society. "The strong do as they wiil, the weak suffer as they must {Thucydides, History of the Peleponessian War, BC 2500} An armed society is a free society..
FQ13 Who is a peace loving man, but will sure not be a martyr for someone else's ideals
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Watched Diary of Anne Frank a couple nights ago....... and when the 1/2 dozen men , mostly with pistols.. one long gun I think.. came to take them away... all I could think was,, "if only you guys had your own pistols right now.. .. you could defend your wives and children.. ...."
Those few other guys (at the moment.. of course there would be others along after a while) held ULTIMATE POWER... it was sad,, not just that I (and the Jews) knew the eventual outcome in the death camps....but sad even just to see the humiliation of grown men unable to even speak up to the armed men... and horrifying to consider myself in their place.. watching my most precious children and wife marched off by monsters
to those who would tell you.. the government will protect you.. tell them that WAS the government..and there have been more governments like that in history by far than ones like we have enjoyed here for the last couple hundred years..
ask them if the government authorities in Mississippi and certain other places protected all their citizens from violence equally ... or only the chosen ones..
this is not ancient history folks either..
nor when the veterans were fired upon in DC..
or the auto workers on the Bridge in Detroit... by Henry Fords hired thugs and gangsters.
Tell them read the Federalist Papers.. (Publius) .... which constantly warn of the danger of government growing too powerful.. and of the ambitions and fallibility of men who will fill the necessary positions.
I hope to never use a firearm (nor a baseball bat or my female hands and fists) against another person... and certainly not against a uniformed serviceman,, or a police officer.... lots of my friends and associates are police officers..
but , and god I hope they would not obey orders.. the bottom line is my family first.. myself 2nd .. and everyone else goes to hell with a bang if it came to a situation like the Frank family was found in.
....and I sincerely believe SINCERELY BELIEVE.. if every household had a decently capable weapon, and every responsible adult carried a competent , manageable weapon routinely... it never WOULD come to that.......evil doers both within and without the government would remain restrained by the obvious counter force available from every direction
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This from an email the other day:
Local television news reported last evening that there were
only four deaths in Vermont during the year 2009 which will be
officially classified as murders. Three were stabbings and one was a
beating. None involved the use of a gun.
Vermont has among the least restrictive gun laws in the nation. No
permit is required to purchase a handgun. Registration is not
required. Weapons may be carried loaded and concealed without a permit
anywhere except schools, federal buildings and airports. The state has
one of the lowest rates in the nation for gun related crimes.
Hmmmmm....wonder if any non gunner Dumocrats ever will get the picture.....
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"God created man, Samuel Colt made them eqwual"
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the bottom line is my family first.. myself 2nd .. and everyone else goes to hell with a bang if it came to a situation like the Frank family was found in.
Words to live by!
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POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUT POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLOUTLY.
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I was just in VT and passed a Gas Station/Gun Store, it was very comforting! My understanding is that if you can legally purchase a gun you can legally carry one which makes a world of sense.
Given the choice of 911 or 1911 I choose the latter.
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Was the parking lot of the gas station filled with blood? Any Blood in the streets? ;D
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CCWs have the ability to make people mind their manners a little bit more. You may be a 6 foot 6 weighlifter and the 75 year old granny that you are going to rob may introduce you to her Smith and Wesson and his five little JHP friends.
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Was the parking lot of the gas station filled with blood? Any Blood in the streets? ;D
Believe it or not there wasn't! Must have been an off day or something!
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I always like the majors writings. ;D
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This essay was not written by "Maj. Caudill", but by Marko Kloos. It can be found on his web site here: http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/essays/ (http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/essays/)
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This from an email the other day:
Local television news reported last evening that there were
only four deaths in Vermont during the year 2009 which will be
officially classified as murders. Three were stabbings and one was a
beating. None involved the use of a gun.
Vermont has among the least restrictive gun laws in the nation. No
permit is required to purchase a handgun. Registration is not
required. Weapons may be carried loaded and concealed without a permit
anywhere except schools, federal buildings and airports. The state has
one of the lowest rates in the nation for gun related crimes.
Hmmmmm....wonder if any non gunner Dumocrats ever will get the picture.....
>:( >:( AIN'T IT FUNNY HOW MAINSTREAM MEDIA NEVER PUTS OUT ANY POSITVE STORIES ON THIS ISSUE??
NEVER HEAR THE GUYS IN WAFFLE HOUSE THAT SAVED THE 15 OR SO LIVES 'CUZ THEY WAS PACKIN' OR THE 12-YEAR
OLD YOUNG LADY THAT SAVED HER LIFE FROM ILLEGAL ALIEN TRASH WITH A 12 GA. >:( >:( >:(
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CCWs have the ability to make people mind their manners a little bit more. You may be a 6 foot 6 weighlifter and the 75 year old granny that you are going to rob may introduce you to her Smith and Wesson and his five little JHP friends.
Another old quote.
"An armed society is a polite society."
Never a truer word spoken.