Monday, December 31, 2012

When You Should be Armed

When I grew up, guns were a part of just about every family.  My family went target shooting in the mountains, which was fun. As a kid at a friend's house you might see a gun on the table and you would no more touch it than you would mess with a wallet on the table.  It wasn't so much they were dangerous as they were personal.

I recall seeing people walk into banks armed, merchants depositing the days receipts.  And in the early seventies I saw rifle cases in classrooms at a small Jesuit College that had a competition shooters club.  Nobody thought twice about it, any more than they would a tennis racket or a pair of skis.

I am not armed because I am a conscientious objector, I am not armed because I am a klutz. The first victim in a gun fight with me would be my foot.  The commandment is "thou shalt not kill" not, "thou shalt not game-on."  Jesus sorted out merchants who should have known better, since merchants are the most blessed in society, but he did not kill them.  Malefactors warrant game-on, but not death.

If you have the time to train regularly and the skill to pick a target and hit it without collateral damage, and you are invincibly ignorant regarding the law against taking life, then you should be armed.  All of those conditions mean very few people would be armed. Those few randomly distributed gunners would be necessary and sufficient to deter the cowards who head straight to mandated no-gun zones to kill those who cannot by law defend themselves from these perfectly sane murderers, who rationally pick gun-free zones to conduct their murders.

Although I reasonably feel unsafe when I see "law enforcement" armed I never feel quite as safe as when I see private citizens armed.  There is nothing quite as heartwarming as dropping in on a friend who is cleaning his 1911 after time at the range.  Or interrupting a posse of hunters who are checking their rifles before heading out into the woods.  Armed citizens!  Heartwarming!

Last century 56 million people were killed by their governments in countries that had civilian gun bans.  Switzerland had zero, where civilians are obliged to be armed. Sauerkraut, brats, beer and a rifle and no cops for a hundred miles.  Ach, Gemutlichkeit!

If you believe there is a right to kill aggressors, then it is your responsibility to provide for the killing, and not by paying someone else to do it.  When seconds count, the police will be there in a few minutes.  Those people in the schools depended on the police and the federal gun-free zone law to protect them.  That is the lesson of the Sandy Hook shootings.

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

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