I’m a Utopian Pacifist. Although I’ve written ten successful books on American gun law*, I support no weapons of any kind on the surface of the Earth, in an era of enduring peace, prosperity, harmony and abundance.
It turns out this is impossible (utopian). The problem is The Four Horsemen of Human Havoc: angry hungry stupid and wicked.
So I support disarming everybody, bad guys first. This is also utopian.
Until then, I find it hard to justify disarming any innocent sane person.
If I could wave a wand and make guns disappear, the brutal communist Chinese dictatorship would make new ones. And the Italians (Beretta), Brazilians (Taurus), Russians (AK-47), Austrians (Glock)—all armed nations would be in business making the iron river. Including basement tinkerers.
Wands are fiction but you can imagine a gun-free world—just think back to pre-gun times. What you get is Genghis Kahn with rampaging hordes, Julius Caesar and Roman Legion crucifixions, Vlad the Impaler, universal serfdom and endless millions horribly murdered. A gun-filled world paradoxically turns out to be more civilized, with safer neighborhoods—even though evil people and government tyrants rampage constantly. Our guns help control them.
A gun-filled world is actually more civilized than a gunless one, with sword-bearing bad guys committing slaughter.
Most people—maybe you—are misled about all this for two reasons. One, you get no education on the subject, and two, because if it’s in the news, and it’s about guns, it’s probably 100% wrong, leaving you misinformed.
For example, we saw saturation coverage recently about four people shot in Philly. They weren’t shot, they were murdered. Media’s subtle word choices affect everything. Murder puts the emphasis on the murderer. Murder is a crime. Shooting is a sport. Media plays this down. Shooting is the second most popular participant sport, ahead of the elitist game golf (#3). Media avoids this hard fact altogether.
Your entire perception shifts when you confront the criminal act, which media for complex reasons disguises or avoids. Seven thousand inner-city black murders annually (FBI stats, 19 per day) aren’t solved, prosecuted—or covered. How would your perception shift if that got saturation coverage? When so-called “gun control” becomes crime control we’ll be closer to peace.
One million DGUs (Defensive Gun Uses) every year are censored. How would your perceptions change if we faced saturation coverage of lives saved and crimes prevented by the presence of a citizen’s gun, which more often than not isn’t even fired? You benefit from armed neighbors—a serious crime deterrent, the “free-rider” effect—hidden from view. Police call those vanquished criminals “the good-riddance factor.” You’ve never heard this before, right?
We also face hidden medical problems, hoplophobia—which is fear of weapons. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Ed. 5) and legacy media obscures that. Inaccurate easy focus on guns should be on criminals, mental derangement and lack of impulse control. Criminal ideation, which isn’t just displayed but promoted in modern media, plays a role as well.
The Nation Is Clearly Divided About Guns
America basically has two camps: The “Just leave us alone,” camp, and the “We want to control you” camp. These are irreconcilable human and political characteristics.
If you ever entertained this utopian idea, “They should just take all the guns away”—ask yourself, “Who is they”? Who makes them give up their guns? Should we just leave “them” armed because police are so good? And how would mass disarmament get done against armed people? That delicate balance of power between armed “officials” and an armed public is what created the freest nation ever known. That was our Founders’ brilliance—evil exists, give the innocent a literal fighting chance.
Look deeper at crime prevention. That, and self-defense, are honorable things, recognized since the Bible and Code of Hammurabi. Innocent life and your home is precious. These need protecting. Our strict self-defense laws are clear, proper and deserve support, especially considering corruption in leadership, judicial systems and among authorities. Angry, hungry, stupid and wicked people pose a relentless threat.
The Bottom Line
You and I aren’t required to protect ourselves, which is good. You’re free to do so, or non-violently “let lions eat you,” and your family. I support this. It’s a matter of pacifism and free choice. We can also use anything at hand, or the best things available, to protect ourselves and survive—at our option. Do nothing and perish if you choose, saving the lions. But it is unjust and tyrannical to compel me to die for lack of good tools or arbitrary morality that puts lions ahead of me.
When thoughts turn to banning arms “for safety,” remember: In dictatorships the spoken word is recognized as more dangerous than arms. “We would not allow ourselves to be challenged with guns, why would we allow that with words, when that is far more dangerous.” –Josef Stalin
A closing thought about news reports: Watch out for “we” and “I think” and “saturation coverage.” These are clues that you’re not getting news. “I think” means news has ended and opinion follows. Read that line again. And always figure out who “we” is and their agenda. Also, distinguish between conspiracies, which are constant and real (e.g., government agencies colluding with big tech to affect elections) and conspiracy theories (like a secret society eating babies in a pizza-parlor basement) that are lunacy.
I stand by my philosophy, and await the day when evil evaporates and guns are no longer needed. Until then, the Marines have it right: Peace through superior firepower. Do not submit to elitist demands to disarm you. [926]
* The Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and Virginia Gun Owner’s Guides, Gun Laws of America, Supreme Court Gun Cases, The Heller Case—Gun Rights Affirmed, Your First Gun, and After You Shoot—Your Gun’s Hot, the Perps’ Not, Now What?
Award-winning author, writer, consultant and musician Alan Korwin has written 14 books, ten of them on gun law, and has advocated for gun rights for more than three decades. Now writing his 15th book, Why Science May Be Worng, see his work or reach him at GunLaws.com. A version of this open letter appeared last year in Dillon’s Blue Press.
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