The Logic of Guns

We are safest if every responsible person owns a gun or nobody owns one. We are most at risk when half the population has a gun and the other half doesn't. Thus all attempts at gun control face an uphill battle.

When every responsible person owns a gun (and we must assume it is loaded) a reasonable assailant must assume he/she is outgunned and vulnerable to immediate retaliation. Therefore only unreasonable assailants will start an attack. When no one owns a gun an assailant may start something but the attack is much less likely to be lethal either to the victim or to the assailant.

If the National Rifle Association is serious about Article 2 and the need for an armed militia, and is not just a shill for the gun manufacturers, then it should propose that a gun should be provided to every responsible person who wants one. There are enough guns in America to arm every adult, no matter how poor they may be. The NRA could ask its members to donate excess weaponry for distribution to the poor and otherwise unarmed so that we will all be safer.

Another good move for the NRA would be to form actual militias that provide, in fact require, arms and training for all competent citizens. Of course the NRA could avoid this responsibility by calling for mandatory military service, but I doubt that fits their agenda.

Universal training and militia service would leave mental state as the only issue that really needs to be tackled in order for all of us to be safer. And mental state would be easier to assess on a national scale if everyone had to undergo something like the Basic Training provided by our armed services. On this issue I speak as one who went through that training and then became an intake interviewer at a base Mental Hygiene Clinic. Basic military training has a way of bringing the kook out in all of us, if the kook is there.