Interesting how people are so shortsighted as to forget history and human nature, hmm?
It is human nature for the vast majority of people to want to live out their lives in peace, raising their families and doing their business, not causing much trouble.
It is also human nature for a small percentage of the people to act aggressively and controlingly, to take what they want and live off the efforts of others. For these people, strength rules.
Until recently in human history, that strength was what ruled. Even the weapons which were used required strength...clubs, knives, swords, bow, catapult, and so forth.
There are two main tactics the weaker can employ against the stronger:
1. Overwhelm his strength by numbers.
2. Engage the stronger enemy in a position where his strength will not overwhelm the weaker.
The best weapon the weaker have against the strong is one that has the ability to engage the enemy at a distance in which his physical strength is no longer an overwhelming factor. By definition, such weapons have to be able to reach the enemy at long distances, do so effectively, and be portable.
As those types of weapons evolved, power started shifting, allowing the weaker to have a far greater say in the workings of man.
This power struggle is still ongoing. Why?
Because it's human nature. And that nature has not changed one wit.
The stronger ruling class may not be the big, burly guys wielding a sword or a mace in the battlefield any more. But they are STILL the stronger...and the ones who hold power. Hopefully, no more power than that which the majority of the population allows them to have.
But power is power...and it corrupts, seeking more power and more control. It always has to be held in check.
Much has been said about this, in one fashion or another. About the power of the gun, and its dangers.
But the gun has brought the weaker something even more powerful than that: the power to have a say in the governing body over them. THAT is the power that must be exercised in order to ensure we retain our liberties.
The gun isn't just a tool...it's a symbol. One we cannot give up, because if we do, we've announced that we're rolling over and presenting our bellies to the enemy.
If things are working as they should, the gun is the tool the weaker use to protect themselves against the small-fry "evils" in this world. The criminals who seek to prey on the weak at the expense of the weak.
This is because we cannot eliminate those types, no matter how strong the government may be. Giving the government that much power removes our own liberties and rights in the process. And historically, we know it doesn't work anyway.
What kingdom ever had a criminal free country? What emperor can say that no crime ever existed in his empire? What dynasty was ever free from strife?
None. Not a one.
The gun gives the weak the power to protect themselves, so that the government can go about its business doing what the people want it to do...which is to protect the liberties and rights the weaker have charged them with doing.
Pierce Morgan, and others like him, are ironically most likely living in a fantasy world, one populated by people who truely believe that if all guns were eliminated, there would be no more crime, no more wars. Very likely people like him are nothing more than tools, allowing themselves to be manipulated by the powerful for their own objectives, truely believing that some utopian goal can be acheived.
All the while forgetting that it's human nature itself which we need protection from, which hasn't changed at all over the history of man.
All the while, conveniently forgetting that it was the sacrifice of countless millions of the weak to gain the rights and liberties we have now. Ironically, those same rights and liberties which allow people like Pierce Morgan to cry about guns.
Well, he can just bugger off as far as I'm concerned.
I'm sure as a UK citizen, he fully understands what that phrase means.
