Being An Armed Citizen Should Be The Default

By RegularGuy

An armed citizen should be the default, RegularGuy argues, drawing on American history, self-defense, and the Second Amendment.

Over the past few decades, the amount of Americans who own at least one firearm has grown exponentially. Whether it’s a GLOCK 19 pistol, a clone of the same, or some variant of an AR-pattern rifle, it is estimated that over 130 million people currently possess one firearm, at the minimum. For a good reason, concrete data of actual ownership is hard to come by, but estimates can be gleaned from NICS background check inquiries, manufacturer-supplied data, and gun shop statistics. Regardless of the sources, a generally accepted estimate, even by the government, is that somewhere north of 450 million firearms are in private hands in the United States. To be certain, the real figure is much, much higher.

However, it’s one thing to possess a firearm. To actually be “armed” is technically quite another thing entirely….

At the founding of our nation, carrying a firearm with you in all manner of situations was normal. If you had a gun on you, it didn’t brook major concern unless you were being aggressive about it. As time went on and our nation urbanized, the overt carrying of weapons was less and less frequent.

The low point in the history of carrying firearms in the United States was when culturally, just carrying a gun outside of sport and hunting activities was viewed with suspicion, and in a lot of cases was even a criminal act. Unless one had the political and financial juice to get a carry permit of course. Outside of those cases, if you had a gun on you and weren’t a police officer, it was assumed you were up to no good or involved in shady dealings of some sort. The “shame” factor kept a lot of people from realizing the Second Amendment applied to them as well.

In the 1970s, the tide turned, with states adopting shall-issue permit schemes, leading up to the Constitutional Carry revolution of today, where in 29 states, one can carry at least a handgun, without a government permission slip. And of course, the Bruen decision of 2022 is dragging the may-issue states into at least a shall-issue scheme.

The pieces are falling into place. Record breaking gun sales. Constitutional Carry. Bruen, Wolford, and we’re even having serious judicial efforts to dismantle the NFA. But yet, out of the 130+ million gun owners in this country, only a minority actively carry a firearm outside of their homes.

With the financial and legal barriers to carrying a firearm being removed in a majority of states, it’s time we as Second Amendment Radicals embark on a new task – making being armed the “default setting”. Jordan Salinas did it in Twin Falls, Idaho about a week or so back. He may have missed, but he saved lives. It was his “default setting”, and it should be yours, as well.

The Reality Of The Situation In The World

This may be old news for some Second Amendment Radicals, but it’s always worth repeating. On a mundane level, the police are not obligated to serve and protect. Absent a specific duty, i.e. an individual officer is ordered to protect something or someone, the police do not owe you protection. Police are law enforcement, i.e. the blunt instrument of government policy. There’s no government policy that says “The police have a duty to protect you the individual”. Warren vs DC and Castle Rock vs Gonzalez solidified this in court.

Even if there was such a policy, it’s unrealistic. Even if you live next to a police station, it will still take them many minutes to find you and render assistance. They have to open the door, find you, and try to help. Forget about it if you live in a condo tower. It’ll take the police a half hour to get in the building and figure out how to get to you.

An assailant can dispatch you to the next realm in 20 seconds or less. The cops might take him down, but you got taken out so it’s scant comfort. No police officer, no Flock camera, no body of law can protect you as much as you can.

Also, on a macro level, what we in the United States and some European nations call “civilization” is an abnormality. The default setting of the world is varying levels of violence. In the US we’re not immune to it either. Local unrest happens all the time.

A gang of motivated rioters can burn an entire neighborhood to the ground in no time at all. A similar state of things applies to Europe as well, as was evident during the recent unrest in Cetua.

And speaking of Europe, they’re prone to genocidal tendencies once or twice a century. And it seems another one is on the horizon. Whether it’s the hungry bear to the East or the rampaging Moslems to the south, Europe is in a bit of bind.

The only defense against all threats, foreign and domestic is for the citizens to be armed, preferably outside the purview of the government. Even the Goldwater Institute agrees, being party to landmark Second Amendment decisions such as Heller.

Make Americans Dangerous Again

It may be an overused trope, but yes – an armed society is a polite society. On a mundane and local level, it’s easy to see this in action. Go to your local gun range, or even a gun shop. Everyone is super polite. Or go to any event where armed security (private or government) is actively present. There’s usually not a lot of nonsense going on. Because there’s armed people around.

As an aside, we have seen evidence of this concept working. The hateful and racially-motivated Jacksonville shooter a few years back skipped prior targets because armed security was present and ran him off. They didn’t know what he was planning, they just knew he didn’t belong in that area. He wanted a soft target, and skipped around until he found one.

The Nashville school shooter operated on the same methodology. Her manifesto revealed just that, she crossed off targets that had armed security present.

The Twin Falls shooter thought he had the run of the parking lot until it turned into the two-way range courtesy of Jordan Salinas, AJ Scott, and other armed citizens present that day. Their default setting was “armed”, and their response threw the assailant off of his axis, and he rapidly took his own life in response.

Anyway, being armed needs to be the norm for any able-bodied adult in the United States. We’re fortunate that our founding documents acknowledge the inherent right to keep and bear arms. We need to take full advantage of this.

Shame is a powerful tool. For decades, the opposition, hell, let’s call them the enemy (we’re in the early stages of a low-intensity conflict), used the power of shame amplified by the media to convince a lot of people that being armed was a bad thing. Because kids or whatever they pretended to care about that week.

Ironically, in this case, the internet as a vast entity is a friend of us Second Amendment Radicals. No longer atomized and feeling that they were “the only ones”, people who may not have had the benefit of being in a place where there’s an actual community with real values can find that there’s others that share the belief that humans have the absolute right to keep and bear (i.e. carry), firearms. The choice of firearm being up to the individual, of course.

The goal is simple. Flood the nation with armed citizens, and make it known that the nation is flooded with the same. A few object lessons later, and violent aggressors will get the hint. That lady walking down the street is no longer a soft target. Attack her, and find yourself bleeding out on the street. That family you are thinking of attacking because the guy on TV told you to? Dad, Mom, and even Junior are armed. You’re toast, and your remains will be posted on the internet for all to see. FAFO, as the kids say.

Armed citizens keep their communities and the nation safe. Trust GLOCK, not Flock.

Being armed is a morally correct response to threats and aggression. By having that 9mm pistol on you or that AR-pattern rifle handy, you are saying that you value your life and the lives of those under your care. And keeping yourself and your loved ones alive, through your own personal work and effort, is a morally correct state of being.

Laws and morality rarely intersect. Do the moral thing.

Try to do no harm, but know how to do harm. Someone attacks you, make sure they don’t do it again to you or anyone else.

As Tony Simon puts it, “Pants On Gun On” – POGO.

Let’s Make Americans Dangerous Again.

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