reply to post by ignorant_ape
I quoted the scene from the movie Contagion. He was a father, that lost a wife, and a young son, but he and his daughter survived. They were
entirely unprepared, in a large city. They were locked down in quarantine and martial law, with no food, no tools, no farm. They were entirely
reliant on MRE's from the military, and the goodwill of their neighbors which very quickly turned into violence and chaos instead of good will.
"Get a Gun"
As you have said is the only advice from some people, is highly inadequate, but, in a situation like in that movie, "Get a Gun" is still very, very
important!
Even without food, without survival prep, without gun training, without foraging for food or hunting, or living off the land. Even without all of
those things, when 3 criminals came in the night, and murdered his neighbors, he was left entirely helpless. He needed a gun.
So, "Get a Gun" is the #1 most important thing anyone should think of, even if they don't do a minutes worth of other survival prep. A gun is the
great equalizer. On those cold dark nights, when there are no police, no lights, no decent food, just you and your family, at least you can feel
somewhat empowered to protect those people you love. You might fail, you might be outgunned, outmanned, or caught off-guard. Guns are not magical,
but they do give you a fighting chance in any situation, so that is something to hold onto! Guns are the great equalizer. They take "force" out of
the equation, and they force people to deal in the business of reason and persuasion instead of force.
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.
Source, wrong author though
