Posted on 10/22/2001 10:17:40 AM PDT by tdadams
Where we live, hunting is common. When our two school-age children are invited to a friend's home, we tell those parents that because a relative of ours was injured in a gun accident, we do not allow our children to be in homes where guns are kept and then ask if they keep guns. We are polite, but play on their sympathy. Our problem: the story is a lie -- no such relative, no such accident. But asking straight out is not as likely to net us the truth. Are we justified in lying? Anonymous, Ohio
A lie may be justified when it is the only way to acquire vital information and when the civic good it achieves outweighs the social damage it inflicts -- undercover reporters come to mind, as do wartime spies -- but yours is not such a case. For starters, you have not yet exhausted honesty. Where hunting is popular, its practitioners are unembarrassed by their zooicidal urges and so have no reason to be coy about gun ownership. It is only your conjecture that direct questioning (of those parents or their savvy kids) would be ineffectual. And even if it were, you could still go the indirect but honest route of asking friends and neighbors, who often know a lot about the rec room or gun rack next door.
What's more, your small falsehood undermines the legitimacy of ordinary parental concern by implying that only families that have suffered personally from gun violence -- an aunt harmed in a bazooka mishap, a cousin injured while being shot out of a cannon -- have the right to worry about such things. That is, you make gun safety either a quirk or the compulsion of one ill-fated family rather than the obligation of every gun owner (and every citizen, in fact).
There are times when ethical action requires deceit, but not often. Prevarication erodes the trust essential for the functioning of society, much as counterfeit $20's undermine a nation's currency. Samuel Johnson, the great 18th-century moralist, took a hard line on such behavior: ''There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.''
Prey he presumably seeks with gun in hand. That's one cave you would not want your kids to visit.
My doctor has copies of Guns and Ammo in his waiting room
"Oh, I'm so sorry that happened. Good thing me and the wife and kids have all been trained in proper firearm safety. And we all practice regularly at the local range, so that kind of accident is a lot less likely. You and your kids are welcome to join us one weekend. We can give you some safety pointers; it'll be fun :-)
Some people can be swayed. I know I've done it. I don't however waste time with folks that will not hear a rational and logical discussion of ideas. I agree that deep set liberalism is hard to overcome and it's usually better to spend time organizing like minds than winning converts.
"And I have very strong reservations regarding your comment that your liberal friends 'know you have guns'... If push ever comes to shove on this issue, they will betray you.
There is nothing for them to betray. Due to my 2A activism just about everybody in a 50 mile radius knows I'm a gun owner.
Peace,
JWinNC
Next time ask your doctor if he is a communist before subjecting your daughter to his ministrations.
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