The Gun is Civilization

                    by Marko 

  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.

  By Marko 

So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are
equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.