I’m turning this blog post over to Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret) because I believe our country is in a dark place right now, and it’s important to let people know what’s important about the Second Amendment.  Don’t miss his post.  It explains things perfectly. 

The Gun is Civilization, 

By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

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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.

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 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.

God Bless America