Nobody Gets Email: Guns, and the Lack Thereof
Nobody Gets Email
Here’s two email that came in just about the same time last week, and in my Nobody’s Opinon, they are a perfect fit!
(Thanks to Pattie and Floyd)
THIS IS THE BEST WORDED PRO-GUN ARGUMENT THAT I HAVE EVER READ. (Says Pattie and she works for the Police in the crime lab)
As the Supreme Court hears arguments for and against the Chicago, IL, 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. Interesting take and one you don’t hear much… 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 USMC (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. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced. This is worth printing and sharing with others!
2 Comments »
Leave a comment
About
I am a nobody. If the different classes of America were color-coded, I would be in the yucky brown, one rung up from the bottom. I grew up in Naples, Florida and live near the Mississippi River now with my husband and two dogs. I am part of the slowly disappearing middle-class. I was a musician most of my life: drummer/singer/keyboards—but I retired before the plastic surgery flu hit. I have no degrees, which could be a good thing…depending on how you view our educational system. I do have three patents…but that really doesn’t make me a somebody. The one thing that is constant in my life is my OPINIONS, which i have more than perhaps even Carl Sagan could have imagined…mostly political. (yes…my ancestors were crabby buggers)
Hopefully other nobody’s will put their opinions on my site. But, if you happen to be a somebody, you’re more than welcomed to help out.
It’s my Nobody Opinion that Nobody’s Perfect, and Nobody Cares, that Nobody Knows why Nobody Wins, and when that happens, Nobody Wonders, why Nobody Flashes, why Nobody’s Fooled, but then Nobody remembers that Nobody ALWAYS Reports the truth.
You can email me at joyanna_adams@yahoo.com
Joyanna Adams
Comments
Anonymous on MTGA (Make TRUMP Go Away) ronita on MTGA (Make TRUMP Go Away) ronita on MTGA (Make TRUMP Go Away) Mrs. O on MTGA (Make TRUMP Go Away) Joyanna Adams on DAD: It Only Takes a Moment or…
Joyanna Adams 
Addendum:
Having watched the video I see where you are coming from. In Oz we had the knee-lerk politician reaction to a massacre – here in Tasmania – where 35 people were murdered. Guns of a particular class were taken away. I was against that and still am, but it remains a problem that guns of other classes are owned and used by the thickest of people. The road signs in the Tassie countryside bear testimony.
Here in Oz criminals have illegal guns. The politicians do not seem to care to pass legislation that automatically renders such people to long prison terms. But then we have a Government hell-bent on ruining the country anyway.
At home I have a Kukri and a Sword and know how to use them. Both are kept sharp and at hand ! I would prefer to have a hand-gun, but then I trust myself far more than I trust anyone else.
LikeLike
The Major is a menace if he thinks like that.
“Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force”
Most human beings do not ‘operate’ on reason but on emotion, so basically he is arguing for force. Now in his chosen profession he is knowledgebale about force application but there are many other fields of human engagement where force is the last thing you want.
His arguement should really be confined to the tiny part of human engagement engaged in by criminals and warriors.
Thank goodness he is not a diplomat.
I wonder how his wife and kids feel (and perhaps reason, although that is unlikely) about his extreme view of humanity.
Personally, Joy, I don’t think he is adding to the debate. Many other nations manage quite well without any emphasis on personal gun ownership. And before anyone might say I am anti-gun, I am not, but I do have a very different perspective on social forms and norms AND a long military background too, not to mention more years of living and experience under my belt than the Major.
Force is a ‘resort’ one uses when many other forms of engagement have been tried. I can understand the use of a gun when one is assailed by someone who is not willing to sympathise, empathise, share – dare I say even Love – but intent on using force themselves on you, but that is rare. Most people go about their lawful occasions in a ‘reasonably’ safe and manageble manner even if falling short of harmony.
I notice he makes no mention of raving lunatics (they are ‘people’ too) having guns. Nor other Majors of a Muslim persuasion with whom he may find himself working.
LikeLike