Gun Control: Using Threats To Get What We Want

by Michael Suede
Libertarian News
Jan. 16, 2013

How many of us in our daily lives threaten others with violence to get them to comply with our wishes? I reckon that the majority of us don’t regularly threaten people. There is a logical reason for this; when we threaten people we burn social bridges. Cooperative arrangements between humans are necessary in order for people to enjoy a high standard of living. If you threaten your hairstylist, the chances are pretty good that they aren’t going to cut your hair again no matter how much you pay. If you threaten enough people, your reputation will precede you and people will go out of their way to avoid you. Of course, there are laws against threatening people as well, but even without laws, common sense tells us that the use of violent threats to get what we want is counterproductive. Being cast out of society is arguably a worse punishment than prison.

While it is clear that most of us don’t run around threatening people in our daily lives, I find it odd that so many of us are quick to cheer violent threats made by their elected representatives. Recently there has been a lot of talk about gun control. The advocates of gun control say we need it to “curb gun violence.” To me, the whole argument about gun control is logically ridiculous. Just how do these advocates of gun control propose to enforce their edicts upon the rest of society? Are they planning to threaten people with guns to get them to comply? Obviously the answer must be yes.

From a logical perspective, the real argument that the gun control advocates are making is that, there’s nothing wrong with guns. In fact, the gun control advocates want them to be employed against the citizenry by the state on a rather grandiose level. The only problems with guns, from their perspective, is that people who are not officially sanctioned by the state have them.

It’s almost hilarious in a certain context. The gun control advocates want to live in a world where the group of humans most responsible for mass killing and torture have all of the weapons, while the people who are subject to their edicts have none. The state, as an institutionalized collection of humans, has been responsible for two world wars, endless mass genocides, the nuclear destruction of two cities, terrorizing the global population for decades with the threat of a nuclear holocaust, imprisoning tens of millions for smoking various plant products, taking half of people’s earned wealth through threats of force, locking up Asian citizens during a war because they looked different, conscripting those who did not pursue a college degree into fighting against their will in a foreign war of aggression and the enslavement of various entire races of people.

Fascinating. Revolting. Irritating.

Do the people advocating gun control really believe that the state is filled with angelic beings? That the state of yesteryear was bad, but today things are different? No, I do not believe they are so naive. They may not admit it consciously, but the real reason that people advocate for gun control is because they don’t want anyone to challenge the state’s authority. The gun is a power equalizer. Those serfs who feel the state is their benefactor, for whatever reason, are far more apt to view any challenge to its power and authority with contempt. The arguments that gun control will lead to reduced gun violence are a sideshow, because clearly the state is going to have to use a lot of threats against a lot of people to impose such laws. However, the advocates of gun control obviously don’t care about that kind of violence, they only care about the violence their fellow serfs engage in against each other.

Further, when gun control advocates make their statistical arguments in favor of gun control, they focus exclusively on gun statistics. While this may make sense from their perspective, it is logically ridiculous given their line of reasoning. Does it matter if a person is murdered with a blunt object or a gun? Does it matter if a person is robbed at knife point or at gun point? Clearly, by their arguments, the gun control advocates must think that it does! Such arguments are bankrupt of logic and reason.