The support for an armed society is a philosophical one, not one of just emotional attachments to tradition. There is a reason the Second Amendment was inserted into the Bill of Rights and was so important to the Anti-Federalists in the 1790-time period of American history that is just as relevant today as it was then. The human race has not “progressed to a certain level where a one world government like the utopian Star Fleet Command is running everything on earth—and it never will. The reason is that there are traits to human beings that so long as they exist prevent the complete trust of individuals into all institutions created by society. To properly have a check and balance against absolute power, individuals must have the ability to overthrow their institutions before they get too big, and too power hungry to handle the affairs of civilization properly. Guns are that fine line of control which keeps our institutions in check with the fear always in the back of their minds that at any moment the population could remove them from office under armed rebellion and replace them. The issue has never been about “assault weapons” or “bump stocks.” It’s about the nature of people and what they do when they have power over other people. Those who want more power over more people obviously are those who support removing guns from society—to whatever degree. But the essence of the argument is that we would be fools to completely trust any institution created by the minds of man. The gun allows us to manage that power we give those institutions—and without that management assistance, institutions by their nature spiral out of control and become oppressive. Because at the heart of most humans who crave power is a laziness that always retreats to default mode and would rather run society as a bunch of compliant automatons rather than free thinking variables.

To put the issue in the most simplistic forms I will provide an example that I have used actually quite often. To provide a little background about myself I am a person who loves personal freedom likely more than most people, and I have always built my life around the ability to be free of institutional control. In my youth I was a martial artist and had developed the personal ability to defend myself no matter what was presented. Growing up I never had the feeling that anybody could “kick my ass” and I still feel that way. I don’t care how big the person is or how skilled, I made a point physically to be the top of the pecking order in regard to fighting in hand to hand combat and that allowed me a certain freedom to think properly about these matters of institutional control. But melee weapons are one thing, if a person approaches you with a gun physical confrontation is not the best way to deal with a threat like that. You really need a gun no matter how skilled you may be in disarming people. The best way to prevent a threat is to show them you have a gun and give them a choice as to whether or not to continue.

For a short while I was a repo man in my early years and I was shot at on occasion. That was back in the old days before there were the kind of rules that there are today. Back then the bank would let you do quite a few things to recover an asset, so I know what it feels like to be a bit of a thief sneaking up on a car to take it away from a hostile person likely armed. I even know what it feels like to break into a home knowing a person was armed to get the car keys. This wasn’t an accepted practice but it’s always better to ask for forgiveness than permission when dealing with bureaucracies and if I could get my hands on the keys, it meant doing less damage to the asset to retrieve it so breaking into a home to get the keys was forgivable—if you were successful. But people did get mad and they did shoot to kill. So in speaking about this kind of stuff I understand it from both sides very well.

I’ve also been to Europe and can report that the people there are pretty much a defeated people. Their gun laws and progressive societies have destroyed individual initiative and expectation. They live in small homes that are too expensive and do not have an expectation of personal sanctity the way that Americans do—and this really does trace back to gun ownership. In Europe the chances of being robbed in your home are much, much greater than in the United States because thieves know that nobody is armed in the home. They think nothing of breaking and entering to steal a person’s possessions even if they are there—because being shot is not on their minds. If they have managed to get a gun off the black market then they suddenly have become the strongest person around and they use that force to their advantage—because that’s what most human beings do when they acquire power—they tend to abuse it unless they are governed by a personal constitution of morality and valor. Without those elements they become tyrants quickly—whether they control a vast institution, or are just petty street criminals. It’s all the same human dysfunction on the micro or macro levels.

The person who trained me in martial arts during my teenage years was a thug. He was a lot like the karate school owner in the movie Karate Kid. His sole purpose for the school was to teach young strong males to be killers so that they’d go to tournaments and win trophies for his wall, so that he could then charge high fees to provide instruction. I thought of him as an evil person and he eventually was busted for many crimes and did jail time, but I learned a lot from the guy. I learned that it wasn’t hard to kill a person with your hands, in fact it was pretty easy and once you learned the basics you had leverage over every other human being that didn’t know that information. Most of his students went on to become terrors—and they got into nearly as much trouble as he did. Once they had the power to literally kill with their bare hands they had no fear of anybody and they began to be bullies that nobody could stop. It was the same concept as the robber with a gun who had something everyone else was missing. Outlawing a gun doesn’t change the nature of dominating others as a human predilection. Until that problem is solved, where humans wish to dominate others, whether it’s the liberal using institutionalism to control individual behavior, or a common street thug beating people over the head with a pipe to steal $25 dollars—the desire to rule over other individuals is the problem that must be solved. No institutional laws will have any effect—because the problem at its core is an institutional issue.

More times than even I can recollect I’ve used the threat of violence to keep peace. If someone is robbing you the way to handle it best is to say, “Hay man,” show them the gun under your jacket “you don’t have to die today. I won’t even call the cops. If you keep walking you can go to sleep tonight.” It’s that simple. Just say that, have the gun to show them—even if they are pointing one at you, letting them know you have a gun and are willing to use it, will most of the time cause them to leave you alone. These things don’t happen like they do in the movies. Criminals want a nice easy hit on someone. They don’t want to die or risk injury. If they have to risk that with you, they’ll move on most of the time. That also goes with hired killers. I’ve also known several of them as well, and deep down inside they are just people like anybody else. They don’t want to die. They know that just because you shoot someone they don’t die instantly. They know if you have a gun on you that you could still shoot them even if wounded. Because of guns in our country, we see much less crime than we otherwise would because nobody really knows who has guns in the house and who doesn’t. That secures our private property in the correct way and allows for Americans to think differently than other people around the world do because private property and ownership is the essence of personal responsibility—and protecting those elements makes for a much more civil discourse at the macro level.

Any person advancing gun control measures of any kind, even the “bump stock” debate after the Las Vegas massacre are avoiding the real issue in human failure in dealing with one another. Human desire to control other humans and their thoughts is the problem and until respect at a fundamental level is established for individual sanctity, violence will always be a threat. Those threats often come from institutions because responsibility for individual behavior is disguised. However, gun ownership is more than just symbolic, they are a proper check against the human tendency to inflict through force beliefs of one group against another. The gun creates a level playing field and forces people to respect each other—which is the first foundation of proper human interaction. There is a fine line between fear and respect, and the gun helps society get there better than any law that human beings could invent. And that is the key to a properly managed society. There is nothing barbaric about gun ownership. In fact, the concept is quite a sophisticated one because it takes the human race to a level of thought that has never been achieved before in the history of the world, and the United States is the evidence that it works. Not in the presence of an active gun culture, but in the type of society and options that Americans enjoy that nobody else around the world has. Guns are key to advancing our civilization in very positive ways because they take the bullies out of contention and allow average people to rule their own lives however they see fit. And if their institutions get out of control, then people have guns to retake control, and that is the most important thing of all. Just having the gun does wonders. Hopefully nobody ever needs to use them. But I can say from personal experience that guns work very well at keeping things……..peaceful. Better than anything else ever could hope to. Institutions want to believe they can, but they can’t. They can’t control individual behavior at its core. They can influence it, but they can’t manage it without the occasional madman emerging to destroy innocent people over any little thing.

When I hold a gun, or buy a new gun, I am making an investment into the kind of human freedom that only a gun can provide. And that is not a symbol of violence. It’s a declaration of independence that is philosophical and unique to our species.

Rich Hoffman

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