Here is a good view of why we carry....
Forwarded By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
Finally. . . A statement about guns that makes a lot of sense.
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
gay 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.
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