I was having a conversation with a co-worker the other day, and it inspired me to post some thoughts on the subject of firearm ownership in America.
Outside of sport, meaning competitive shooting or hunting, there is really only one reason to own a firearm and that is defense. Weather home defense or self-defense (outside the home), guns are specifically designed to shoot stuff.
Those of you who know me know that I do a fair amount of competitive shooting, but that isn’t what got me interested in guns to begin with, it’s just where I ended up while looking for some light tactical training.
Back to that conversation; The most interesting part of the chat was (I’m paraphrasing here, my memory is questionable at best) this quote:
“When America was young, the only reason to own a gun outside of hunting was as a balance against a tyrannical government. At that time, this argument made sense, but now the government has tanks. I don’t have a tank.”
This is an excellent point. In my mind there are only two real scenarios (not counting of course, your standard home invasion, or zombie apocalypse) where defending yourself at home would be a reality.
Scenario 1: You are protecting, probably with others in some militia-style setting, yourself and your property against an invasion of a foreign (or domestic) tyrannical government/armed forces. Success in this scenario is the least likely of the two for the reason stated above. Even with solid professional training, your ability to overcome those forces (much less survive) is infinitely minimal at best. The good news is, this scenario is much less likely to occur than the next.
Scenario 2: The civility of American society has broken down and you are protecting yourself and your property from militant civilians attempting to take from you what you have. This scenario is much more likely. We have already seen this manifested in small scale, think about the New Orleans flooding and the insanity that followed there. Certainly, your defense against the “common man” has a much higher rate of success (in comparison to scenario 1) in my opinion.
An attempt by civilians to thwart an invasion by any military force would certainly be met with complete defeat, and even more certainly by death to countless defenders. This fact would not keep me from putting up a fight, but taking a step back to recognize this reality helps us understand firearm ownership logically. That is to say: we are not all back-woods militants hell-bent on conspiracy theory and anti-government propaganda.
My point here is not to play devil’s advocate to any American militia (which is no-doubt growing by the minute), but perhaps to offer some perspective to those who lobby for “gun control” legislation.
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