I once had a rather painful encounter with a shovel. As the shovel descended towards the earth to increase the size of the hole it was creating, it intersected my foot. Specifically, it struck at the joint connecting my big toe to my right foot. (Luckily I was wearing appropriate footwear and suffered no injury.) While no evil intent existed, neither did the shovel apologize for the (inadvertent) assault. Why?
Because the shovel is just a tool! In this particular instance a tool being swung by my own, momentarily clumsy, hand. Unfortunately in today's culture it has become common to anthropomorphize tools and thereby lay the blame for an offense on an inanimate object rather than the person wielding it.
My focus in this blog (not this individual post but the blog) will be combating inaccurate memes in current use. A meme is an idea or concept, usually one that is not the technical meaning of a word or phrase, but an undercurrent associated with what is spoken. Memes are often adopted by mere repetition rather than frank evaluation and acceptance as true. When a given movement desires to push it's vision forward, but cannot make traction in a straight-forward debate, they can use propaganda to blanket the populace with their memes. Once the debate is framed in the desired context, the weaker argument of the movement is shielded from frank assessment and is accepted. I intend to shoot darts at these hot air balloons and bring the debate back down to earth.
What has this got to do with the above story? Let me ask you a question: When a criminal shoots a person, who is to blame, the gun or the crook? ..... Then why do we always get calls for more gun bans after a shooting incident? Gun bans only keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens -- making the criminals safer! This applies not only to gun ownership, but gun use. Did you know that when citizens are allowed to carry weapons, crimes against persons drops? If the petty thief doesn't know who might have a gun, he won't risk snatching a purse or holding someone up at the ATM. Rapists are less likely to attack if there's a chance the lady might have a gun to defend herself. We don't need fewer guns, we need more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens.
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This argument is based on the absurd assumption that people are either criminals (good) or law-abiding (evil). It also ignores the implications of widespread gun possession including the potential for lethal 'crimes of passion' and foolish behaviour by people under the influence of drugs, that otherwise might not have resulted in a death... not to mention many subtler societal effects.
I have lived in a society where guns are readily available and made the choice not to carry one because I'd rather give a mugger some money from an ATM than pull out a gun and risk getting shot. If I have a gun and am prepared to use it then I must also be prepared to use it and accept the consequences which may include committing what is legally classified as murder. It's simply impossible to be sure that in the heat of the moment what you are doing is genuinely self-defence.
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