The Virtue of Firearms
Never be ashamed of our right to self defense
The inviolability of our right to bear arms in self defense might be the greatest achievement of our Founding Fathers. The idea that a government would restrict itself from confiscating the very weapons that could someday be used to overthrow it, just a few years after they were used to overthrow Great Britain, seems unbelievable today.
This precious right is under assault from all sides. The National Firearms Act still unconstitutionally restricts entire classes of weapons, states and municipalities continue to restrict or ban commonly-used firearms, and the Idaho Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of a loophole that can be used to deprive you of your right to bear arms.
On the other hand, the expansion of Constitutional Carry is perhaps the biggest success story in the history of the conservative movement. In 1986, only one state allowed citizens to carry concealed firearms without a permit, and a majority of states either issued permits arbitrarily, or banned the practice entirely. By 2023, a majority of states, including Idaho, have adopted Constitutional Carry. Our state passed it in 2016 due to the great work of Greg Pruett and the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance, even before freedom-loving states like Texas and Florida.
Nevertheless, our rights are still under threat. Every time a crazy person uses a firearm to murder people, politicians and pundits rush to blame guns and demand that they be banned. The Governor of New Mexico recently attempted to ban the carrying of handguns in her state’s largest city, but the attorney general and local sheriffs refused to enforce her unconstitutional order.
This push to ban guns is not going away. What is it about the firearm that gets leftists so worked up? Car accidents kill an order of magnitude more people than guns, yet we don’t hear about “common sense car control” every time we turn on the news. The opioid epidemic of cheap Chinese drugs has killed tens of thousands of people, yet that barely cracks the headlines as well. What makes guns so controversial? Why is the left, which advocates abortion, drug use, and many other harmful behaviors, so dead set against private gun ownership?
To this question a leftist would surely say that unlike cars, guns are built for one purpose – to kill another human being. While some conservatives go mealy at this point and bring up hunting or sport shooting, I would agree – guns are meant to kill. That is their purpose, and that is exactly why gun ownership is so important.
Imagine for a moment a world with no weapons. Does the lack of tools for killing other people change human nature? Do we suddenly lose our innate capacity for greed, jealousy, anger, hatred, and callousness? Of course not. Human nature never changes, no matter how much communists wish it. Imagine a world of no weapons where human beings are just as evil as they are in our own world, but you have no way of defending yourself against the fists of strong men. Do you dare go out at night? What of communities? Whomever has the biggest and strongest men in his employ will rule. Police have no power to enforce the peace, and the military has no way of defending a nation against invasion by those who are physically stronger and more determined to win. That is not even to mention human ingenuity in fashioning weapons from the simplest objects. The boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies killed each other with sticks and rocks. The 9/11 hijackers killed airplane pilots using box cutters. Are we going to ban knives, like the United Kingdom is trying to do? If it can cut a steak, it can cut human flesh.
The gun is a remarkably simple device. Early firearms were very basic: a small explosion sent a lead ball down a barrel and out a muzzle. The explosion was accomplished with some gunpowder in a small pan that was ignited by striking a piece of flint. Over the centuries this design was constantly refined, until we settled upon the mechanism we have today. In modern guns, the cartridge contains the bullet, the powder, and the primer, which serves the same purpose as the flint. The explosion is generated when a hammer inside the gun strikes the primer, causing the small explosion that propels the bullet forward with great force.
Rifling barrels increased the speed and accuracy of long guns starting in the 17th century, while Samuel Colt’s design for the revolver in the 19th century made it so you can fire multiple shots before reloading. Today’s semi-automatic firearms do the same thing. A handgun like a 1911 or a Glock uses the recoil of each shot to rack the slide, which automatically loads another cartridge from the spring-loaded magazine in the handle.
Contrary to popular belief among journalists, automatic weapons are not prevalent in the United States — they require a lot of expensive paperwork and oversight. Also contrary to the hysterical fearmongering by those same ignorant journalists, semi-automatic weapons are normal and common, whether Glock-style pistols or AR 15-style rifles. They are no more “weapons of war” than a steak knife.
More than a decade ago, author Marko Kloos wrote a short essay titled “Why the Gun is Civilization” in which he explains that firearm ownership is the quintessential factor in maintaining a civilized society:
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 gangbanger, and a single gay 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.
Human nature is red in tooth and claw, while the gun is civilization. Guns did not put evil into the hearts of the leaders of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, but it was American guns that stopped them. Yes, guns are made to kill people, but that is neither good nor evil. Killing in defense of your own life of the lives of your family is not evil, nor is killing the enemy in a just war. The gun is simply a tool to carry out the will of the hand that wields it.
It is that hand, attached to a person with a mind, a conscience, and moral agency, that determines if it is to be used for good or for evil. It is not the gun that killed innocent people in Parkland or Sandy Hook that was evil, but the young men who decided to use those guns to commit murder. On the other hand, the gun used by a man in defense of his family, an event that happens nearly every day, is not morally good, but is rather a tool in the hands of a moral man. It is for this reason, however, that the gun has traditionally been a symbol of the inalienable rights of all men and women.
The gun is civilization, and its use by moral men in defense of their lives, their liberty, and their property, is a virtue, not a sin. The first act of violence recorded in the Bible is when Cain murders his younger brother Abel. Cain did not have a gun, but he still managed to accomplish a heinous act against an innocent person. While they are obviously speculative, most artistic depictions of the murder show Cain (the farmer) as a large, muscular man, while Abel (the shepherd) is drawn as a smaller, weaker, man. Imagine if Abel had a gun to defend himself – the odds would at least have been equal. In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, primitive apes discover the power of weapons when they learn to use bones to attack and destroy their enemies. They didn’t need guns to do that.
Throughout history, power was always concentrated in the hands of the strong. For primitive tribes, physical strength was the most respected attribute, as the ability to defend your family and defeat wild animals or the men of enemy tribes was paramount. Since the average woman is always weaker than the average man, for most of history women have had to submit to one man or another for protection.
Even in the early middle ages, physical strength was still the most important attribute for a fighting man. It took strength to wield a sword, mace, or axe, as well as to carry protective armor. The English longbow, so deadly during the Hundred Years War, took massive strength to fire properly. It was the invention of the gun that equalized war and defense. Instead of spending a lifetime to learn and master like the longbow, a musket could be quickly taught to any peasant conscript. A man with a musket could defend his home and his family better than the strongest knight with sword and spear in earlier eras.
Firearm technology continued improving into the colonial era, and explorers, traders, and colonists brought the gun to the New World. Popular culture often depicts the American Indian tribes who encountered early English colonies as continuing to use the bow and arrow, but they too switched to the musket and the rifle as soon as they encountered them. Why continue to use inferior weaponry against mortal enemies?
The rifle became a symbol of the American frontiersman’s independence. With it he secured food for his family and defended them against anyone who would do them harm. As the American nation spread westward, pioneers brought their guns with them, and with the guns came civilization. A long gun over the door did not represent malice or murder, but safety of hearth and home.
A lot of ink has been wasted arguing over the wording of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. In full it reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Much of the context of this statement is lost on the modern mind. Remember that the Founders despised the whole idea of standing armies, which had been used by the monarchs of Europe to oppress their people.
This idea had its genesis in the idea of English liberty, actually. The English people were constantly fighting against their kings over how much of an army the king could maintain. Have you ever wondered why the armed forces of the United Kingdom today are the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, but not the Royal Army? It is because English subjects would not allow their leader to maintain a permanent standing army that could be used against them in times of peace. The Founders of America inherited those ideas and wrote them into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The “militia” referred to in the Second Amendment was not a specific standing army, to whom guns must be restricted, but was the entire male adult population of the new nation. In case of war, men would be called upon to defend their states, and it was imperative that these men know how to use guns. When armies were not permanent, governments did not have time to put recruits through twelve weeks of Basic Training. Instead, they assumed that all good Americans would be familiar with muskets and rifles already.
The Founders understood that the right to self-defense against lawless murderers and tyrannical governments alike was a natural right, not something granted by a benevolent government. Anyone who spends more than five minutes thinking critically about this idea must come to the same conclusion. Too much of our discourse, however, is driven by emotion. News media shows us pictures of dead children and demands that we “do something”. We are told that we must ban guns in order to stop criminals from using them against innocent people. This is obviously ridiculous, as criminals by definition do not follow the law. Most mass shootings that make the news occur in so-called “gun free zones” where carrying firearms is already illegal. Signs and laws do not stop bad people from doing bad things, but good people with guns can. To take away the ability of a man to defend himself and his family from people who would do them harm is fundamentally immoral and evil.
The Founders would reject the argument that the government must ban so-called “weapons of war” from our streets. During the late 18th century, civilian-owned weapons were on par with their military equivalents. Many soldiers simply brought their own muskets and rifles to the war with them. Some civilians owned cannons or even naval warships – the Constitution still allows Congress to issue letters of marque for privateering during wartime.
To say that the Founders could not imagine a semi-automatic rifle being owned by civilians is patently absurd. This slur against the Second Amendment is equivalent to saying that because the Founders could not foresee the internet, then our First Amendment rights only apply to the literal printing press. The Founders believed in the right of American citizens to arm themselves with the most high-tech weaponry available not only for self defense but also as a check against tyrannical governments.
You see, the Founders also understood the role of firearms in securing their independence and liberty from Great Britain. The first battles of the American Revolution came when British regulars marched on Concord, Massachusetts to confiscate American guns. Without firearms, the colonists would have had no choice but to submit to their masters in London, no matter how tyrannical they became. Without privately-owned guns, any citizen is at the mercy of their government and its armed forces and police.
History shows us that the greatest danger to people is not their fellow citizens but is instead their government. It was the lawful German government that executed millions in the Holocaust. It was the lawful Russian and Chinese governments that put tens of millions to death as they sought to create the ideal Communist societies. It was the Cambodian government that decided to execute hundreds of thousands of intellectuals.
The leftists who demand we give up our guns accuse us of hubris in believing that our AR-15s can defend us against our own government, should the need arise. The government has tanks and nuclear weapons, they say, forgetting the lessons of Afghanistan, Vietnam, and of our own Revolutionary War.
Gun confiscations always precede tyranny. Venezuela banned private ownership of firearms and then established a tyrannical socialist government that has so destroyed the country that people have been reduced to eating zoo animals to survive. The United Kingdom, lacking the protections of our written Constitution and Second Amendment, banned private handguns after a particularly bad shooting. Today, UK police will arrest you for possessing too many knives, or for making posts on social media they find offensive.
It is only going to get worse there, because the people already gave up their trump card and can no longer significantly resist encroaching tyranny. The same process is occurring in Australia and Canada, where speaking out against homosexual propaganda or Covid lockdowns landed many in prison.
As the saying goes, the Second Amendment protects the First. If America did not have the Second Amendment, then our freedom of speech and assembly would have been taken away long ago.
Whenever a bad person uses guns to do bad things, our elites respond by trying to take guns away from good people. They are entirely hypocritical, of course, as most people in favor of gun control enjoy the protection of armed professional bodyguards. After one of the school shootings during his administration, President Obama was asked what he thought about arming teachers or establishing guards in schools. He was against the idea, even though his daughters attended the most prestigious private school in the country and were protected not only by 24/7 Secret Service but also by guards employed by the school itself. Our elites will take away our ability to defend ourselves while retaining their own. Remember the old saying that “God made men, but Samuel Colt made them equal”? If our elites had their way, self-defense would once again be restricted to the rich and famous.
Today, the right to bear arms is still vigorously protected by traditional Americans as well as civil rights organizations like the NRA, the GOA, and many others. But this might not last forever. Anti-gun advocates move incrementally, instituting background checks one day, red flag laws the next, then banning certain accessories or types of firearms. We should not be fooled into supporting any such restrictions, no matter how “common sense” they sound, because they are always only a step in the direction of outright bans and confiscations.
If you intend to make America great again then you must be able to defend yourself and your family. Own guns, and practice using them. Know the rules of gun safety. Teach your children to respect the awesome destructive power of firearms, but also how to handle them safely and properly. Remember that the great fear of foreign invaders — a rifle barrel hiding behind every bush in America — is also the fear of those in our own government who would seek to disarm us and oppress us.
Be prudent. Remember that we are not so-called “gun nuts,” showing off our arsenals and just itching for a chance to use them. Instead, we are the posterity of America’s Founders, who respected the gun as an instrument of civilization and the defense of liberty. The firearm is a tool for good in the hands of moral men. Be that moral man and raise your sons to be moral men after you.