When I blogged on the responsibilities of citizenship on the Fourth of July (and said very little), I fully expected loyal readers to ask me what I was thinking. This did not occur. But I'm bringing you the sequel to that post anyway, even if it isn't by popular demand. I am including the entire article Kim du Toit referenced, because the link for it no longer works.
A man allegedly went to the home of Ray and Annie Friesen in Beaver Valley on Monday and asked to use their phone, saying his car had broken down.Ray Friesen, 79, allowed the man to use a cordless phone outside, but when the suspect returned the phone, he allegedly took out a hunting knife, said Gila County sheriff's detectives.
The man tied Ray Friesen to a chair in the dining room and demanded credit cards, a wallet and keys to a vehicle, authorities said. Friesen gave the man everything he asked for, detectives said.
But the man then entered a room where Annie Friessen was resting. When Ray Friesen heard his wife screaming, he struggled free of his binding and got a pistol, said Sheriff John Armer.
Friesen found his wife bleeding and the suspect standing over her with a knife, Armer said. Friesen shot several times.
Annie Friesen and the suspect, whose name was not immediately released, were both killed.
Why present this at all? If I led you by the hand through the logic of self-defense, you would start to balk early in the process. Whine at the logic, perhaps. You'd stop reading my nice pleasant guided tour, and continue your life with the same bias as before. The solution, then, was to deliver a bombshell. An incident to which the only logical thing an anti-self-defense person can say is, "That was an unusual situation." Well, no. No, it isn't. Every day, the strong prey upon the weak, and they don't need guns to do so. In Britain, a man in a wheelchair successfully drove off a knife-wielding attacker using only a can of Mace. He was then arrested, because Mace is illegal in Britain. That is where this insanity of yours is headed.
I refer to the top article. The thieving, mudering bastard was strong, and therefore didn't need a gun. Lesson: crime will continue in the absence of guns, just as crime was invented long before the personal firearm. The unfortunate elderly gentleman is presumably physically weak, thus he did require a gun to stop the aforementioned murderer. Lesson: gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is a necessary part of their self-defense.
To those who actually think that ever stricter gun laws will reduce gun crime, by reducing the supply of guns, I have one thing to say that you may not have heard before: illegal drugs are, by definition, illegal. Yet they are very easy to acquire in the US today. Many of these are not grown in the US, yet they are successfully smuggled into the country, our vigilant sentries notwithstanding. Demand conquers all barriers in very grand scale. Why should guns be different? Extrapolation: Even if you repeal the 2nd Amendment, confiscate every gun, and put the manufacturers out of business, the criminals will still acquire them. Factories in other countries will gladly turn out guns by the boatload, and buying a handgun on the street will be no harder, really, than buying dope is today.
An old chestnut among gun-rights supporters is that "if you outlaw guns, then only the outlaws will have guns." This is, of course, a truism. But you want to skirt it-- to eliminate all guns. First, that will never happen (see drug smuggling analogy above). Secondly, though, it would be bad if it did happen. The strong, alone or in gangs, armed with baseball bats or not, would still prey on the weak-- except that the weak will have been deprived of the means with which to fight back. With no credible threat of protective force, it will be open season for criminals. Pepper spray is restricted in some states and localities already. Freaking pepper spray. If you want to make self-defense illegal, can you meet the gaze of a rape victim who might have been saved by as little as a measely can of pepper spray? Can you look her in the eye, and tell her that renouncing weapons was a moral triumph for law-abiding citizens?
If you can... then I will hurt you, physically. You deserve it for being so cold toward an individual, all the while claiming that you want to prevent the suffering of innocents. "What?! You can't do that!" Not legally, no. You can call the police, they'll probably catch me, and I'll probably be punished. But you will still have been beat up. In fact, that's my point. You want everyone to be a good little sheep, despite the eternal presence of wolves. No significant portion of the sheep own guns, or know judo. Your sheep won't carry cans of Mace, for they will be illegal. When the wolves come, will any sheep be able to call the police? When the police come, will they catch any of the wolves? Regardless of those last two answers, punishment of the wolves will be small consolation to the sheep who are dead.
Posted by Mitch at August 18, 2003 10:31 PM