Posted on 04/30/2008 4:36:36 PM PDT by Ptarmigan
Just a piece of cold steel
I am a gun. I was designed primarily as a weapon of defense. I have been reviled, hated, feared and declared unlawful.
Many have spoken out against me and have slandered my name and maligned my actions.
Yet, I am but a cold piece of steel - I have no will or volition. I cannot aim or cause harm to anyone.
While within me there lies awful potential, it requires an outside agency for it to come to completion.
I have never killed, murdered or maimed anyone intentionally. But I have been used by others to do all this and more.
It requires a man's hand, a man's hatred and a man's will for the cold steel contained within me to become deadly. It requires a total disregard for a neighbor, friend, husband, wife or brother for my power and force to become deadly.
If you wish to stop senseless killings and violence, you must look beyond my slick finish and ergonomic design. You must look within the heart of a man darkened by hatred, prejudice and a lack of appreciation for others.
It is in that dark space where murder is conceived and where the resolve to perpetuate the madness for which I am blamed begins.
Every person should look deep within for any attitudes of intolerance toward others and underlying animosities which could generate these actions.
For as long as men are brothers with respect, appreciation and love for one another, I am but a piece of steel.
L. Malcolm Seal, Jasper
Thank you for posting this.
Wow
That was an incredible piece.
BTTT
The Gun is Civilization
by Marko Kloos of the
Munchkin Wrangler blog
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 [armed] 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.
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
I don’t carry a gun…
… to kill people. I carry a gun to keep from being killed.
I don’t carry a gun to scare people. I carry a gun
because sometimes this world can be a scary place.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m paranoid. I carry a gun
because there are real threats in the world.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m evil. I carry a gun
because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the world.
I don’t carry a gun because I hate the government. I carry a gun
because I understand the limitations of government.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m angry. I carry a gun so that I don’t have to
spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.
I don’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone. I carry a gun because I want to
die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m a cowboy. I carry a gun
because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a cowboy.
I don’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man. I carry a gun
because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.
I don’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate. I carry a gun
because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.
I don’t carry a gun because I love it. I carry a gun
because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.
“Police Protection” is an oxymoron. Free citizens must protect themselves.
Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate
the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.
_____________________________________________
Personally, I carry a gun because I’m too young to die and too old to take an ass kickin’.
John Steinbeck issued a warning that all should remember:
"Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.
Mr. Seal must be one of those bitter, clingy people I keep hearing about.
Yep. I have a bumper sticker that reads:
“If guns kill people, then mine’s broken.”
You’re preaching to the choir, and the other side doesn’t acknowledge logic. Sometimes I think that it will eventually come down to force (provided we aren’t totally disarmed by the slowly boiling frog approach).
Stock Up!!
bttt
Anti-gun people never let the fact that a firearm is an inanimate object get in the way of their agenda.
It may be cold steel, but I like the way my revolvers warm up when I carry them next to me for a while. Don’t get the same fuzzy feeling from the polymer beasties.
You all know very well, Cane would never have murdered Able if there were no guns...
Some people say bad and nasty things about fragmentation grenades, too, and in fact they are kind of heavy and a little bulky to wear under a sports jacket.
But when you really need one, there aren't many good substitutes, and they're awfully handy to have with you.
Steel ?!?!?!
that is sooooo yesterday. I never leave home without my plastic.
http://l.b5z.net/i/u/6070324/i/inerts__new_0993.JPG
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
