We live in a civilized society. At least I think we do. Living in a civilized society means there are certain conventions — rules of good behavior — that we follow to make life easier. Traffic laws, rules about privacy, and respect for private property are all examples of social conventions that make life in a community easier.
Living in civilized society also means certain conveniences. It means I can go to the grocery store with money in my pocket to buy food instead of having to bring two dozen eggs and a couple of chickens to barter. It means when someone is indebted to me, I can solve the problem through the legal system instead of having to show up at my neighbor’s door with a pistol.
I once had a conversation with a man who informed me that “an armed society is a polite society.” He was arguing, in effect, that if people are in fear of being physically harmed, they are likely to behave better. While it may be true that there are a few people who will not follow the rules without the threat of violence, this is an astonishingly cynical view of humanity in general. I highly doubt the reason your neighbor waved hello to you earlier today was out of fear of being shot. Nor it is likely that he or she would be more likely to wave if you were armed.
No. For the most part he had it exactly backward. An armed society is not a polite society — it is a fearful society. In a civilized society, people are not polite because they fear violence; they are polite because violence is not necessary.
I live in civilized society not because I am allowed to carry a firearm, but precisely because I don’t have to. If we all lived in the jungle without any law, we could all arm ourselves. Being able to carry a weapon is certainly not a hallmark of civilization, since every uncivilized land in the history of the world has been armed. A civilized society — a society of rules — is a place where it is not necessary to settle disputes with violence.
What kind of society would we live in if you couldn’t go to the grocery store, or the movies, or even sit at your desk at work without having a loaded gun within easy reach? Why have laws in such a society? You have the means to settle any problem in your own pocket. The Supreme Court is your trigger finger.
Being at home means having the ability to rest comfortably without worrying about someone stabbing you in the back. Civilized society extends our homes beyond our doorsteps. We ought to be able to walk the neighborhood or go to the dentist without carrying a firearm. Isn’t that what we want to mean when we say, “This city is my home”? We want to mean that we live there, are comfortable there, and feel safe there. We want to mean that our hometown is a community where we don’t obtain parking spots with an exchange of bullets.
Who would want to live in a society where everyone was armed? Where every fender bender could escalate into an exchange of gunfire, or where you are afraid to challenge the amount of your lunch bill because the gun the waiter is toting is bigger than yours?
Civilized society is based on trust. Gun culture is based on distrust. A society that substitutes bullets for trust is not a society worth living in.
There is a misperception that guns are a kind of equalizer. That one person may be stronger than another, but if the weaker person has a pistol, well then, it’s all even. So guns help the weak to be strong. But this is the wrong way to look at it.
Recently, one man rented a hotel room in Las Vegas and rained bullets on 23,000 people for more than ten minutes. One can imagine that if the paths of escape for the 23,000 were cut off, so no one could escape from the killing field, this man could have continued to mow down innocent people as long as he wanted to. As it was, he was picking off people trapped in a blind alley. The only reason he killed 58 people instead of 5800 people was that he didn’t have enough time. He had enough bullets.
This is a bizarre situation. We have one person holding absolute power over 23,000 people for ten minutes. Twenty-three thousand against one should be a mismatch, but not when the one has a 48 AR-15s, thousands of rounds of ammo, and 12 bump stocks. This isn’t equalization. It is tyranny. It is one person holding the power of God in his own hands for almost a quarter of an hour.
When do you consider changing the rules of society? According to our Founders, the ones who wrote the Constitution (and that odd Second Amendment), you consider changing the rules of society when one entity (a king, a dictator, an oligarchy) exercises too much power over a large group of people. When the few, or the one, have dictatorial powers over the many. When that happens, the Founders said, it is time for a new government. Tell the king to take a walk. Send Parliament home. At least that’s what the Declaration of Independence says.
Unrestricted freedom to arm gives people who choose to buy 48 semiautomatic rifles and 12 bump stocks absolute power over others. That is what tyranny is — absolute power. Needless to say (at least, it should be needless to say), a man who holds the power of death over 23,000 people with no limits is a tyrant, and that kind of tyranny has no place in a democratic society. Or a civilized one.
Now, some would argue that when that happens, everyone else should just buy guns of their own and it will be even. But then civilized society goes out the window. In such a case, people are not buying guns because they want to, they are being forced to buy guns because other people have them. In other words, tyranny. Because of people like the Las Vegas shooter, I am supposed to bring my trusty Glock 9mm with me to the grocery when I want pretzels for the football game. A lone nut with a gun dictates the rules of society.
I don’t think so. That isn’t freedom. That is the exact opposite of freedom.
Restricting the ability of people to arm themselves isn’t taking away rights. It is resetting the balance of power, so a crowd of 23,000 no longer has to fear a psychopath with a gun.
Resetting the balance of power is what democracy is supposed to be for.