The Morality of Gun Rights

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

- Thomas Jefferson

Brigid has a post that's worth your while:

I'm out for an very early morning walk with a woman friend. She does not shoot, though she is starting to show interest. We're walking down a long trail in a small city park, a large sprawling area with miles of trails, a lot of trees and a small river. A jogger passes us every 10 minutes or so, Barkley's intent on sniffing out a cheeseburger someone just had to have left behind on the trail. She's quiet and then the question comes out.

She looked at me and said "you're carrying, aren't you?".

This is one of Brigid's best, which means that it's one of the Blogosphere's best.  Go read.

Gun rights are women's rights.

Gun rights are Gay Rights.  Gay bashing only works when the target is disarmed.

And as of today, Gun Rights are Borepatch rights.  The nice mailman brought our Georgia Weapons Carry Licenses.  I am now - in a sense that Jefferson would understand - free.

I look at things from a psychological viewpoint (as is typical).  I am convinced that the lawful carry of firearms is a moral act.  It is the act of a citizen, not a subject.  It is the act of someone unwilling to outsource the protection of himself or society to the government.

Nobody wants to be in a situation where they need to use a firearm for self defense; certainly I don't.  Nobody wants to be in a situation where they need to use a firearm for the defense of society - say the Los Angeles riots or Katrina; certainly I don't.

But there are a lot of things that I don't want to do, that I prepare to do anyway,  because I'm an adult.  Because I'm a citizen who cares about this Republic.  Because I strive to be moral.  Because  I believe in Civilization.

Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out … People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically right. Guns ended that, and a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.

– L. Neil Smith