An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

Robert A. Heinlein
1942
Beyond This Horizon
[I went looking for this quote when making a comment the other day and found I had never posted this on my blog. It’s such an important and famous quote for our culture I decided that I should include it even though it is going to be rare that someone reading my blog will have not seen or heard it before.

While I agree with the first sentence I’m not so sure about second. I think there is something else going on. I think the more significant changes that occur are in the armed person(s) rather than those around them. I have carried a gun nearly every day for nearly 20 years and while it is difficult to recall exactly how I felt and acted before I started carrying I think the mostly subconscious thought process goes something like the following.

I shouldn’t, and don’t need to, let my emotions dominate in a conflict with another person. I have a gun. If my emotions rule me I might use it when I should not. Should my adversary get so far out of line that I, or another innocent person, be in physical danger I can probably handle it because I have a gun. There is no need to “get back in their face” if they are getting all wound up. I can let them blow off their steam and coolly observe and be prepared to defend with decisive force rather than attempt to confront them early in their emotional escalation. Hence my response to conflict tends to be more subdued than unarmed people. This, in most cases, results in the other side deescalating or at least getting completely out of control. When both parties are armed the response on the other side is also subdued and we arrive that the observable result of “an armed society is a polite society.”—Joe]

The Left has to change the subject to vigilantism because the case for self-defense is so manifestly obvious. Is the state respecting the fundamental rights of citizens — including their right to life — if it mandates passivity in the face of violent attack? Of course not. It does, however, respect the right to life when it empowers self-defense while also prosecuting those rare few who seek to mask murderous intent behind a self-defense pretext.

Protecting the right of self-defense is just. Mandatory disarmament is not.

David French
February 24, 2014
Dear New York Times, Self-Defense Is Not Vigilantism
[In other words, as is usual, they have to lie to win.

It is the right to self-defense that is our strongest point in the debate and the one they will lose when the debate takes place in the U.S. In some other countries and cultures a reference to the right of self-defense will get a blank stare.

I would like to suggest those who find the right of self-defense incomprehensible should be encouraged to leave this country. Surely they would be more comfortable in a time and place where the government had or has a monopoly on violence such as one more of the following (from here):

• Japan’s Savage Military
• The Khmer Rouge Hell State
• Turkey's Ethnic Purges
• The Vietnamese War State
• Poland's Ethnic Cleansing
• Pakistani Cutthroat State
• Tito's Slaughterhouse
• North Korea
• Barbarous Mexico
• Feudal Russia

And that doesn’t even include Uganda, Nazi Germany, communist China, and Stalin’s USSR.—Joe]

These days, an awful lot of those people … like their guns and intend to keep them.

Paul Barrett
February 20, 2014
Gun Control and the Constitution: Should We Amend the Second Amendment?
[That is a huge understatement.--Joe]

Mr. Morgan’s approach to gun regulation was more akin to King George III, peering down his nose at the unruly colonies and wondering how to bring the savages to heel. He might have wanted to recall that part of the reason the right to bear arms is codified in the Constitution is that Britain was trying to disarm the citizenry at the time.

David Carr
February 23, 2014
Piers Morgan and CNN Plan End to His Prime-Time Show
[Carr seems to get it even if he (reading the rest of his article) doesn’t agree with it. Morgan’s attitude and simply calling Alan Gottlieb and others “stupid” rather than having plausible argument made his position much, much worse.—Joe]