why the gun is civilization.

Alright, I am going to post this essay and I cannot attribute the author absolutely. The oldest attributable link I can find is to this location-www.blogtopsites.com...

The author here, does not attribute it to anyone else and the author's name is Marko Kloos.

But, I have found another link that states he was the originator of the essay, his handle here I think is the same person. He goes by the handle here of Gunny G, but through a link, it ends at a place with a person named again Marko, so I believe I have the right author. Here are the two links-

gunnyg.wordpress.com...
munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com...

Now, I just want to add that people have been posting this attributable to someone named Major L.Caudill, USMC (Ret.), I believe this to be an incorrect assertion. Anyway, I wanted to attempt to straighten out the error prior to posting this.

It has to do with civilization and force. I thought it quite interesting.

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.

The rest can be read here-www.blogtopsites.com...

In a sense the gun does reduce the ability to force you if you can use it to repel someone trying to force you. Though to use the gun is only an example. The blade also suffices.

In this sense and argument he uses it seems to be that the gun 'levels' the playing feild. Though if nobody had guns and all had knives then it would also be level. Until someone got a gun. Though if everyone has guns, someone will get a rocket launcher or something silly and then everyone needs one of them to level the playing field.

Here's some civilization for you then. Enjoy!








Makes a guy like you proud, no?

reply to post by Okandetre


Well, you can also apply it to the nations.

Most of us have heard of the Mutually Assured Destruction scenario.

Where the superpowers have enough nukes to wipe each other off the face of the planet several times over. Now this is another form where force is not the route you want to take, you want to take the route of persuasion instead of force.

I liked the analogy he used with a woman and a man also.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


Attempting emotional rhetoric is the typical response from you isn't it.

How bout using some logic and come back with a comment.

edit to add-I guess those examples you give what was used? Persuasion of force or persuasion of debate? Hmmm?

In that sense Force is reason. You can't force anyone who is prepare to die for not doing it. Force is just an argument in reason

I would like to post the author's response to the force fallacy-

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 weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower


Just giving you some examples of civilization, buddy. Eat it up.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


Did you even read the essay?

Do you even attempt to look at things logically?

Tell me, if the people of Egypt had guns, do you think that JUST MAYBE, they wouldn't have been run rough shod over the last 3 decades?

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

How bout using that logic that you have?

Originally posted by saltheart foamfollower
reply to post by Okandetre

 

Well, you can also apply it to the nations.

Most of us have heard of the Mutually Assured Destruction scenario.

Where the superpowers have enough nukes to wipe each other off the face of the planet several times over. Now this is another form where force is not the route you want to take, you want to take the route of persuasion instead of force.

I liked the analogy he used with a woman and a man also.

This is true, i'm not against firearms per se. Was just saying that it is not the firearm exclusively that creates these situations. As a animal we are geared towards solving confrontations by threat and boast of our weapons not by using them.

Living in the UK though, we don't have personal firearms but we managed to be as civilised as other countries who do have them, and more so in some circumstances....

reply to post by Okandetre


Well, I believe mainly what the author was getting at ( I cannot really positively explain his position ) was that if force is to be applied to settle an argument, it is better that both parties are on equal grounds. I have brought an analogy up before, that in the "wild west" it was not wild. Everyone had guns, you did not get into an argument unless you were ready to die. Most logical people would rather use persuasion instead of force.

Of course than you have those that do not use logic. These are the types to be weary about. Those people or groups that do not argue logically but have an emotional component. This is my argument here.

Now when you have unbalanced force, like in the situation of an elderly person or a woman, they are automatically put in an inferior position. I just thought this was a pretty cool breakdown of the argument of equalizing force to attempt to push the debate back to persuasion.

edit to add-Also when confronted with a theif, or other criminals, I would rather not have to protect myself with a fist, old Colt makes us all equal.

Originally posted by saltheart foamfollower
reply to post by TheWalkingFox

 

Did you even read the essay?

Did you? The argument presented is the old "if everyone is armed, they act politely" act. It claims this as the basis of civilization. I decided to post picture evidence otherwise. Armed people certainly did not behave politely. In a few of those, the dead people were also armed (the last one is from the US-Philippines war, for instance). Where was the civilization? The polite and reasoned discourse?

Do you even attempt to look at things logically?

Sure. Which is how I can tell that the blog you're posting is basically illogical. Ever heard of the Crips and Bloods? Everyone's armed, nobody's polite. An armed society is not inherently more moral or reasoned or civilized; it's exactly the same, only now people have better weapons. People remain the twitchy, irrational, poorly-reasoned creatures of bias and habit who's primary concerns are eating and screwing, no matter if they have a fist, a spear, a pistol, or a grenade.

Tell me, if the people of Egypt had guns, do you think that JUST MAYBE, they wouldn't have been run rough shod over the last 3 decades?

Tell me, ever read up on Egyptian gun law? It's comparable to American gun law, though long guns are restricted (this does not apparently stop anyone from getting them, though). The trick is that the government has better weapons. Which is why those Lakota and Filipinos in my picture are corpses.

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

Quoting a man who made his living by beating and raping slaves, on the subject of liberty. When the government fears its people, there's tyranny; and then the people begin to fear the government, and tyranny persists. Name a country in the middle east. Egypt's already been played, but how about Iran? iraq? Syria? Israel? Turkey?

All of them feature governments that are afraid of their people, and so use a combination of superior force and propaganda to keep the people pliable and docile to the government's wishes.

Weapons don't change this scale. Arming the Cubans to fight Castro during the Bay of Pigs just resulted in dead Cubans and a stronger Castro. The British arming the Iroquois to fight for them in 1812 just resulted in dead Iroquois. Tyranny persisted, weapons or no weapons.

The change that must come is simply the abandonment of fear. If you think you need a gun for that, then you're still afraid.

How bout using that logic that you have?

Logic does not mean agreeing with you. You really need to get that through your noggin.

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower


By the by, you're also making appeals to emotion here. "Think of the women and elderly!!!!" And of course, the ever-popular comfort fantasy of being Bruce Willis-badass when confronted with a "bad guy."

I will counter your claim in a short sentence: "The pen is mightier than the sword."

An noble idea will always survive armed conflict which strives to silence disbelievers by force or execution.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


Blah, blah, blah, blah. Tell me of one time in the history of mankind, that violence was not there. One time and this comment I will give you. All I ask is one time in history.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


THAT WAS NOT an emotional argument, that was a logical argument about self defense and the ability to level the force playing field. Just because you do not like the logic of the argument, does not mean it is directly an emotional argument.

How does leveling the playing field become emotional? Because a woman is inherently weaker? Well then, what about a person with a disability or say anyone facing a person that has been trained in martial arts? Or has a knife? Or has a machete? Does that remove the emotional argument?

reply to post by kinda kurious


Well, you bring to the argument the persuasion end of it. But if you have no time to use that persuasion, what good is it?

Ann Coulter, BTW one hot babe, had an article this week similar to what your OP states.

There's only one policy of any kind that has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the highly regarded economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.

And the effect was not small. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent.

When there are no armed citizens to stop mass murderers, the killers are able to shoot unabated, even pausing to reload their weapons, until they get bored and stop. Some stop only when their trigger fingers develop carpal tunnel syndrome.

Consider just the school shootings -- popular sites for mass murder because so many schools are "gun-free zones." Or, as mass murderers call them, "free-fire zones."

www.anncoulter.com...

Originally posted by saltheart foamfollower
reply to post by TheWalkingFox

 

Did you even read the essay?

Do you even attempt to look at things logically?

Tell me, if the people of Egypt had guns, do you think that JUST MAYBE, they wouldn't have been run rough shod over the last 3 decades?

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

How bout using that logic that you have?

Tell me, how would the American government react if US citizens started turning up to protests with guns, taking shots at the security services? Do you think the government would be scared or return fire with bigger and better guns?

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox

Originally posted by saltheart foamfollower
reply to post by TheWalkingFox

 

Did you even read the essay?

Did you? The argument presented is the old "if everyone is armed, they act politely" act. It claims this as the basis of civilization. I decided to post picture evidence otherwise. Armed people certainly did not behave politely. In a few of those, the dead people were also armed (the last one is from the US-Philippines war, for instance). Where was the civilization? The polite and reasoned discourse?

Do you even attempt to look at things logically?

Sure. Which is how I can tell that the blog you're posting is basically illogical. Ever heard of the Crips and Bloods? Everyone's armed, nobody's polite. An armed society is not inherently more moral or reasoned or civilized; it's exactly the same, only now people have better weapons. People remain the twitchy, irrational, poorly-reasoned creatures of bias and habit who's primary concerns are eating and screwing, no matter if they have a fist, a spear, a pistol, or a grenade.



The change that must come is simply the abandonment of fear. If you think you need a gun for that, then you're still afraid.

While I'm not entirely sold on the idea of every single person walking around with a firearm, I don't think your comparisons stand up.

You are mentioning wars, and gangs. Of course there is going to be violence and death. Wars were around before firearms, and plenty of people were killed then too. If you are on a battlefield, there will be death. A gang war is still a war.

I think the OP's point was armed citizens in everyday life, not on a battlefield. While there are fights and violence here and there in "everyday life" I don't think ANYONE knows for sure if a large percentage of people being armed would be a good or bad thing. On one hand knowing everyone is armed would make most logical people think twice about starting something, but on the other hand people aren't always logical. Both views have merit, neither can be proven, so I don't see the point of the argument.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


WHAT?

You have not seen the protests over the last few years? People did show up with guns.

I guess if they started shooting, I GUESS they would be either arrested or put down for crimes. See how that works?

You creating a situation that has not happened, does not really help your argument. This essay to me, was a breakdown of evening up the force between individuals. You could equate it to individual countries like I brought it up before with the MAD scenario.

People that do not believe in gun ownership do not like this discussion, because they believe that an unarmed populace could actually do something against a tyrannical government. Well you would be wrong, Tienanmen Square or the numerous other incidences over in our favored nation status buddy's country?

To me, this is a discussion of the debate between individuals. If an individual that is powerful or has a gun, knows or suspects someone else is on the same footing will think twice about engaging in force to persuade or to implement their action.

Like I said though, this is pretty much the discussion between the individuals in society.