Friday, September 14, 2007

In Defense of the Second Amendment

Via an old post from Ex-Liberal in Hollywood, we go to an even older post from Tennessee's Munchkin Wrangler, who explains to us quite deftly the moral imperative of the Second Amendment:

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 gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats...

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...The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker.

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....It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

Wow. Sometimes brevity is brilliance. I would like to hear Hillary Clinton and Jon Corzine try to debate the Munchkin on this issue.
But if they failed to persuade due to faulty reasoning, wouldn't they still attempt to use their own version of force (as in forcible disarmament of the civilian population) in order to get what they want, despite losing the argument ? And wouldn't that again prove our friend's point?

If we give away the Second Amendment, the loss of the 1st (Freedom of Speech) and 3rd (Right to Privacy) would follow in short order...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You out to send this out to every anti-2nd amendment politician in the land, see what they have to say.
Made me think of Israel - how would that tiny country, surrounded by hundreds of millions of "haters", survive if they did not have the advantage in firepower?
Or would the anti-gun left-wing have us disarm Israel in order to stop the "cycle of violence" in the mideast?