Own Guns, So I Don’t Have To
While attending the Agora Financial Symposium in Vancouver, I became aware that Americans enjoy some rights that Canadians do not: among them, the limited ability to carry weapons. Even private security guards seem unable to be armed in Canada. This does not make me feel safer. Quite the reverse.
Private people who carry guns make me feel safer.
So I would like to make a plea to my fellow citizens: please buy, carry, and even stockpile weapons. Carry them with you always. Keep them in your homes and cars. It’s especially important to do this in public places, where freak murderers like that guy in Aurora, Colorado, lurk. The weapons should be loaded and dangerous, capable of killing with one shot.
I especially desire this because I don’t want to buy or own a gun. Truth be told, I hate them. I don’t want them in my home. I don’t want to go shooting at the range. I don’t like looking at them, shopping for them, cleaning them, or even thinking about what they do to others. I loathe violence of all sorts, and hope to never have to use it. I’m a pacifist in spirit.
The only way I can really hope to get away with indulging my wimpy temperament here is if others are willing to pick up the slack that my unarmed self has created. I want burglars, kidnappers, and thieves of all sorts to believe that every home in my neighborhood is heavily armed and populated by fearless gun owners.
I want every robber around every corner to hold the expectation that anyone he mugs is carrying a deadly weapon. I would like to sit in theaters, airplanes, and restaurants where the trolls and scum among us believe that they could pay the ultimate price for misbehavior.
The thing is that I do not want to personally contribute to this cause in any way. I’m not up to it.
To be sure, I was raised with guns in Texas. As early as my trigger finger could work, my parents gave me a surprisingly powerful BB gun. All my friends had them too. We played in the backyard with them regularly. The older kids had 22 pistols and rifles. When they weren’t playing basketball or street football, they were in someone’s backyard (in city neighborhoods!) blasting away at cups, cans, and targets. When I came of age, I got a pistol too.
It was enjoyable enough. But as the guns got bigger, I lost my interest. The shotgun my father taught me to shoot I found to be alarming. His 33 rifle was no better. The bullet was long and looked deadly, even horrible. Once a friend took me out to his farm to shoot his 44 pistols. The sound, the kick, the astonishing damage that these guns caused was it for me. It burned me out on weapons forever. I never want to hold one again so long as I live.
My sincere hope is that other people are not as squeamish. If everyone felt like I do, the world would be a much more dangerous place. The criminal class would rule the day. The pathway for their craft would be clear. So too for government agents, who would hold a monopoly on the use of deadly force. Barriers to tyranny would removed. Those who prey on others would have a free hand.
A friend who grew up in Brooklyn in the 1960s said this was a common slogan in his neighborhood: “For every Jew a 42.” It was commonly understood that if the Jews had been heavily armed in Germany, the rise of the Nazis would have been checked, and perhaps the Holocaust could have been prevented. Neither he nor his friends were particularly interested in doing this but the point was clear.
Today, he too hopes to be a free rider on gun nuts. I’m with him on this point.
In so many ways, the debate on guns in deeply disturbing. Those who love guns, collect them and shoot them, are the people who are dedicated to defending Second Amendment rights. They go to gun shows, sign up for gun-rights advocacy groups, read gun magazines, and hang out with friends at the rifle ranges to practice.
On the other hand, the opponents of gun rights, those who would want to disarm everyone and stupidly think that the criminal class will go along with the bans, are also the same people who can’t imagine ever owning a weapon. None of their friends own weapons. They live in places like Portland, Oregon, where there doesn’t seem to be any purpose to owning a gun. They are sickened by them. Therefore they want to ban them.
This group has a corollary among those who have no desire to smoke pot and therefore want to deny everyone else’s right to smoke the stuff. So too the people who want to ban liquor and prostitution exercise no effective demand for the goods and services. These people all see the law as an extension of their own moral and aesthetic preferences, and means of institutionalizing and universalizing their own lifestyle and belief systems.
Actually, what the law is should have nothing to do with our own personal choices about what we like and do or dislike and do not do. This view seems nearly extinguished in our world today. If you don’t drink sodas, you are happy to ban them. If you are not gay, you are glad for laws that restrict freedom for others. If you don’t like guns, you want them banned.
That’s not how the free society works. The preservation of freedom requires that we be willing to stand up for the rights of others to own and do things we do not like but which harm no one, or, in the case of guns, actually save lives.
For this reason, I have far more respect for the teetotaler who favors a free market in liquor than I do for the heavy drinker who favors them same. Non-smokers should stand up for the right to smoke. And so too should people who do not own guns and have desire to own guns stand up for the right to possess and carry.
Especially in the case of guns, we gun wimps have a special and personal interest in defending not only gun rights but also the massive proliferation of weaponry among the citizenry. It’s the only way that we can truly deter crime and stop crime in public places when it is unleashed.
The Aurora theater case is a great example. An unarmed population is vulnerable to mass killers, and there is nothing the state can do to prevent this. You can turn the whole of society into a prison and not even that would prevent violence, as anyone who knows prison life can tell you.
The push to disarm is actually a very scary trend. Think of how it applies among travellers today. All weapons are confiscated before people board the plane. So we have large numbers of unarmed people landing in unfamiliar places and wandering around without the ability to protect themselves. Every tourist has a sign on his or her head: mug me.
The only real means to prevent the emergence of a world safe for criminals and government is to see the proliferation of guns among everyone else. I’m sorry, but I will not do my part in this respect. But I will defend the rights of others to do so, with a sincere hope that they will stockpile and be ready. Yes, I’m a free rider, but gun nuts need to know that I’m truly grateful.
Regards,
Jeffrey Tucker
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Go right ahead Mr. Tucker. Oh by the way I will be putting this sign in your neighbors yard — “Home protected by Smith and Wesson. <— Neighbor next door is not." Sleep tight.
Great article. I wish more people had the same feeling of rights. Not so much the gun vs anti-gun but the fact he does not like firearms but does not feel he should exert opinions on a group which does. This applies across the board people…. Pot, firearms, alcohol, freedom of speech, etc.. You shouldn’t ever restrict someones rights just because you don’t agree with them.
Mr Tucker, has it occurred to you that you are of the same mindset as those who expect the rest of us to work harder so we can pay more taxes to be “redistributed” to welfare loafers? Grow a pair, son!
If a pacifist you wish to be, then don’t expect others to come to your defense when something bad happens. Perhaps it should also occur to you that most of us who do own firearms may be repelled by the thought of taking another person’s life? It is a huge responsibility; one which we may train for but earnestly pray we will never have to exercise. Like it or not, it is a personal responsibility and there is no requirement to defend anyone who will not defend himself.
“War is an ugly thing. But not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by better men than himself.” John Stuart Mill
Substitute “violence” for “war” in the above quote and look at yourself in the mirror.
I would draw your attention to a circumstance which is always overlooked in this type of discussion. Firearms, or “guns” are merely the most common form of tool used today to implement a much more powerful concept, that is, the use of deadly force. Anyone who cherishes liberty should be prepared to use deadly force to secure that condition for him or herself as well as those they love. A club, a sword, or a weapon yet to be invented, it’s all the same. It is childish and irresponsible to shirk your duties simply because of a distaste for the tools needed to carry them out. I daresay there are many carpenters who are not “hammer enthusiasts”. I was a gunsmith for many years. Now my excitment over and love of guns has waned, to say the least. Nonetheless, when my grandchildren stay with me in my home, I am prepared to use deadly force to defend them from predators. I am ready to defend my right to liberty from an opressive government. Who will defend you and yours?
[...] Own Guns, So I Don’t Have To by Jeffrey Tucker Whiskey and Gunpowder [...]
Mr. Tucker, you need to arm yourself. Don’t expect the people around you to save you, when in public. Chances are very slim, that that will happen. Whether because you are in a “gun free” zone, or because the docile American public has drunk the Communist Central Banker-inspired cool-aid (and think that guns cause crime) just as most of those inside the following organizations have, who will also lose their freedom, just to save their jobs!: CFR, CIA, FBI, ATF, DHS, TSA, Democrat Party, Republican Party.
Federal and state courts have held that law enforcement has no duty to protect individuals, but only to keep peace in a community. Since such be the case, who is, then, responsible for one’s individual safety? Obvious answer: The individual.
Shunning responsibility is not the sign of a mature adult.
OT, I live in Vancouver and it’s a socialist ****-hole. Beautiful sunsets, though.
Oh, and I own a firearm, although as Mr. Tucker stated the crime syndicate up here has thugs pretending to be “authority” who will try to cause you a lot of harm if you choose live a civilized existence. “Just doing their job” and all that — the reprobates.
Finally a non-firearm owner who gets it. Obviously a few commentors telling you that you need to arm yourself isn’t going to change your mind, but at least you understand that the more armed citizens there are the better off the country will be. If only more people saw it your way.
Mr Tucker, I read this via link, and was surprised to see your name at the bottom.
Here is my response on the forum it was shared on:
> In other words “I’m an educated well spoken sheep, and I wish to choose a different sheepdog. In return for protecting me, I will cheer you on and yell at the other sheepdog when he tries to pull your teeth, but no financial support, sorry. You need to empower me in my pansi-fied ways which I am happy to revel in, just not under my current master (the state) who has proven ineffective at defending me.”
I appreciate this guys support of my gun rights, but his logic for it is horribly flawed.
If he wants the protection of privately armed citizens all around him, he needs to hire them, or atleast help them purchase the weapons he’s calling them to purchase in droves .
I hadn’t realized it was you when I wrote that, surprised I didn’t immediately recognize your style, but this is NOT the attitude I would have expected in an article from you. As a gun owner, I am a bit offended by people that want me to replace the state in their personal protection plans. I suggest you research further and re-think your position on this matter.
To the nay-sayers, when you have done as much for the cause of Liberty as Jeffrey Tucker, I will listen to you.
I would no more force someone to have a firearm as I would to have a motorcycle. It’s a personal preference, and one which Mr. Tucker _understands_. Far worse are people who knee-jerk from ignorance, be they for or against the ownership of firearms.
Mr. Tucker has also done something most hoplophobes never do, he knows how to shoot and _chooses_ not to. Which means he can, if the time came, handle a gun competently. I’ve been stopped by police officers who demonstrated near complete ignorance about firearms, and THAT is what is truly frightening.
So “grow a pair” and realize that different people live differently. Go polish your guns, and when the cops/soldiers come around to confiscate them, remember your advice to someone _else_, someone you called a “sheep”, to “grow a pair”.
Good article, I identify with it.
I think a lot of people are missing the point. The point is made in the second half of the article.
If you are a gun carrier… I hope you leave people to carry or not carry as they see fit.
If you are a non-gun carrier… I hope you leave people to carry or not carry as they see fit.
That is the point of the article. Everything else is just rhetoric to get you in the right frame of mind.
I’m going to add… there are some people that will *never* be convinced that carrying a gun is a good idea. Those are the people that *are* trying to ban gun carrying. If you could just convince those people to leave you alone (rather than oppose you), you would be far better off.
Thanks for the honesty, Jeff. Perhaps you can help the cause by exercising your rights in some other way. Hmm…how might you do that? Anyway, when it comes to the Bill of Rights, the 1st Amendment protects the 2nd and the 2nd protects the rest–or is it vice versa?–when properly exercised. Not everyone gives blood. Not everyone has a cattle ranch, or a farm–or a well (water or oil). If everyone was completely self-sufficient, we wouldn’t need currency.
Still might I suggest some mace, or a taser. I noticed they had yoga at FreedomFest this year (a little too early in the morning for me). I can recommend T’ai Chi, which has health benefits as well as the martial element. There’s more than one way to defend yourself–and defend your country from tyranny, whether it is the tyranny of the one, the few, or the many.
I like guns. But I would hate to feel that i needed to carry one for self defense. The only thing worse would be needing it and not having any opportunity to have it. Where i live I’m unlikely to need one precisely because we probably have more guns per-capita than the worst inner-city you could imagine. Little old ladies have 2 or 3. A criminal could not count on an unarmed victim. And no, we don’t have them for self protection. That’s just a nice side benefit.
It is a real crying shame when many citizens feel that they have to own, and even carry a deadly weapon. I thought we lived in a civilized society. But thanks to NRA brainwashing of the people, they are scared, frightened, nervous, shaking, upset, trembling, that the big bad boogeyman is going to get them. and since the advent of a weapon at every corner, and in the hands of every potential nutcase, they now have good reason to be.