Some words have the irrefutable power of truth behind them, despite the fact that they exist only as collections of zeros and ones suspended on magnetic metal platters floating in time and space.
A Nation of Cowards is such a collection of words.
Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the police’s, not only are you wrong — since the courts universally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so — but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself? Because that is his job and we pay him to do it? Because your life is of incalculable value, but his is only worth the $30,000 salary we pay him? If you believe it reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon another to do so for you?
Do you believe that you are forbidden to protect yourself because the police are better qualified to protect you, because they know what they are doing but you’re a rank amateur? Put aside that this is equivalent to believing that only concert pianists may play the piano and only professional athletes may play sports. What exactly are these special qualities possessed only by the police and beyond the rest of us mere mortals?
One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or grievous injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance. Let’s not mince words: He will be armed, will be trained in the use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal violence.
In a society that increasingly subcontracts out the right of self-defense, against the principles outlined clearly in the founding documents of that society, is a nation in need of education. No one is more motivated than the individual whose very existence is threatened to protect said existence. So why would we let someone else, a stranger, take over the responsibility of protecting our very existence? Because we are taught to do so.
I do not find myself willing to subcontract out the responsibility for protecting my own presence here on this Earth. Rather, I am am the prime advocate of me. And that is why I spent another Saturday on the range. I sold a .22 caliber pistol to someone this weekend. He is a soldier, like myself, but he is also a typical American in this new nation of ours – educated to respect authority and trained to sublet his life out to others.
He asked me who he needed to register the gun with. “No one,” I said. In this state, you have the right to carry a gun in your vehicle, or to keep one in your home. You are allowed to defend your existence with a firearm. He had a hard time believing me. Much like his assigned bureaucrats must have, I used the technique of repetition to reinforce ideas in his brain – the center of his existence. While he practiced with the ammunition I had purchased on his behalf, and I practiced with my larger caliber weapons, we talked about the basic ideas that every American should have an awareness of.
“When do I have the right to use a gun in self-defense?” he wanted to know. “Anytime you feel like you are in danger,” was my answer. “What will the authorities think?” he asked. “That really doesn’t matter,” I told him. Then I explained that I would rather take my chances with a jury than I would with a being not bound by allegiance to the laws of man. He understood I think. He is starting to break the mental chains we are all wrapped in as soon as we enter the public education system of this United States of America. I hope he will practice often with his new gun.
Now, dear reader, I direct your attention back to a most potent compendium of logic, that essay entitled A Nation of Cowards. Read it. Then read it again. Who is in charge of your life? Ask yourself if you are brave enough to take ultimate responsibility for your own existence.