Naturally. Self defense from criminals is the more likely justification for resort to deadly force.
Odd, in a way, that criminals being armed justifies the honest being armed. But that oddity lies at the rock bottom root that justifies honest folks to have the upper hand in force.
At some extreme points, self-defense and resistance to tyranny merge. Self defense is all encompassing.
Naturally. Self defense from criminals is the more likely justification for resort to deadly force.more NRA members pick "personal defense" as their primary reason for owning a gun than the "rebellion against tyranny" straw man that has become Talking Point Number 1 for the government-media complex. - jiggyboy
Odd, in a way, that criminals being armed justifies the honest being armed. But that oddity lies at the rock bottom root that justifies honest folks to have the upper hand in force.
At some extreme points, self-defense and resistance to tyranny merge. Self defense is all encompassing.
There are, like, laws against someone breaking in your door, and against murdering you. But at the time and place of a criminal’s choosing, a law book is not a particularly effective shield against violation of those laws. So the question becomes one of making provision against being at a time and place of a criminal’s choosing. One way is to have your own personal cop looking out for you, like the president and his family have. But of course that begs the question of who is protecting the family of the cop who is preventing all criminals from violating laws against attacking you. That is an unaffordable system, and it still begs the question of who credentials the cop so that we know he won’t break any laws.Now I agree with Dean Martin; the right standard for gun control is that I have weapons and nobody else does. But of course that would be unworkable, and certainly not politically attainable. Ultimately citizens need equality of violent potential. And unless you are willing to shackle the young, the male, and the physically fit down to the the same violent potential of an old woman, the only way of equalizing the violent potential of citizens is for the weak to moot their strength disadvantages. There is a mechanism which can do that. It’s called, “a gun.”
People who raise alarums, not over violence in general but over gun violence in particular are actually opposing the only mechanism by which violent potential can be democratized. It’s easy to assume that since guns increase violence potential, reducing guns would reduce violence. But since there are thousands of gun owners for every annual gun murder, we know that guns alone are not the problem. The real problem is a small subset of gun wielders who were irresponsible before they ever got a gun. And who, preponderantly, do not own the gun legitimately. And who, with or without guns of their own, would be even more of a problem for society if they were free of the constraint of Dean Martin’s nemesis - other people’s guns.