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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.
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.
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.
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?
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."
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?
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.