The Second Amendment, for our time

I have a comment over in the Remember New Orleans post from a person calling himself jt. I ususally don't respond to comments, because I prefer for my work to stand on its own merits. I was taught as a writer not to respond to criticism, because my work should be able to withstand criticism. However, jt asks some questions that deserve response. I'll fisk his commentary, hopefully so that we can understand one another better and that the dialogue might be instructive to everyone.

jt starts:

I think you're not stupid enough to think that having a gun can protects you from hurricanes.
So maybe you just think you need to protect yourself from people who most of all need help. For your good consciousness you prefer to call them thieves instead of calling yourself selfish. And maybe some thieves think the same, just the other way around. They may think they need a gun to make sure selfish people will be more willing to share instead of idly letting them die.

Thanks, jt. I am just barely intelligent enough to know that firearms won't protect me from hurricanes. As a lifelong resident of Louisiana, I know that only God will protect me from hurricanes, and drowning, and tornadoes. Heart attacks, too. Once my time is up, and my meeting with Him is arranged, I hope that I can muster the courage and dignity not to blow it.

I'm not concerned with what a thief thinks. I learned long ago that the criminal mind is different than mine. I know that I am not selfish, but that doesn't mean that I will let someone take something that is mine. If he asks, I will probably give it, but taking things is rude. And criminal.

Actually I think if one day I need help I have more chance to meet someone who won't be willing to help than I have a chance of meeting someone who will mug me. That being said I've already been mugged, but I felt less bad than each time I meet someone with your discourse which I feel are more of an aggression. In both agressions I doubt guns would have helpt, on the contrary, I would either be a killer or a corpse.

Maybe so, jt, but we'll never know, will we.? You weren't armed when you were mugged, so the point is moot. However, recent studies show that people who fight back are less likely to be injured than those that don't. Interestingly, it has been my experience that muggers are cowards and only prey on those that look as if they won't fight back.

Just for my curiosity, how many muggers have you been confronted to? And how many human beings lacking the basics have you walked by, maybe not seeing them or thinking they were worthless of your help?

Oh, dozens, conservatively. Maybe a couple of hundred. And as far as helping people that needed it, that is my job. I exist to protect and serve. It is my calling to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and to serve those who need me. I sincerely hope that I have never walked past someone who needed my help. In twenty five years of working in this field, I have never felt threatened by a law-abiding person with a gun. Many times I was happy and secure that those people were present.

I'd like you to not take my words as an attack, that's not my intention. I hope that either I may help you to start thinking differently, which I doubt, or at least to read an instructing note from your part of what I did not get in your thinking process that lead you to tink that world is a better place with arms. What I wouldn't like to read are insults because we disagree, even if you feel like my post is plain stupid, please explain me why precisely. Arguments are not used enough when we "speak" with divergent minds IMHO.

I don't take comments as an attack, and I will not insult you. However, I would like you to consider that our Founding Fathers considered arms important enough to protect along with free speech.

Consider these facts: 1) There has never been a program of ethnic cleansing that was perpetrated against an armed society. 2) That England, going through probably the most comprehensive arms control program in modern history, is also experiencing the most crime in recent history. 3) The US cities where crime is most rampant are also the cities with the strongest gun control laws. 4) In New Orleans, those citizens who banded together in militias and protected their neighborhoods with arms survived the storm relatively intact. There is only one rational conclusion from these facts; that an armed society is a secure society. That the law abiding use of firearms is our one good hope against anarchy.

I don't think your post is stupid, jt. I think it is incredibly naive. There are people out there who prey on others. It is my job to indentify and incarcerate those people. I can't be everywhere at once, and it is incumbent on every citizen to provide for his own safety. If you honestly feel that you are better off not being armed, then I have no business trying to convince you otherwise. However, once you make that decision intelligently, you should also understand that you are prey.

It has been said that violence never solved anything. That oversimplfication is in error. Violence, properly controlled, is the only solution sometimes. When confronted with unlawful violence I intend to quash it. Peacefully if possible, violently if not.

Two men have looked down the barrel of my pistol and considered eternity. Both surrendered quietly. One chose to contemplate his decision in silence. The other told me later that he looked across the room and saw death. He chose life.

Remember New Orleans