XLR8R
12-01-2008, 01:37 AM
Please enjoy this debut article from Gun-Forums.com's staff columnist:
CHLs – The Real Reason Crime Doesn’t Pay
Go ahead, admit it - some of you might be downright uncomfortable packing a concealed handgun from time to time; and even if you won’t (or can’t) ‘fess up, everyone knows someone who’d be afraid to have such death-dealing hardware at their ready disposal.
While I have no intention to deliberately make a case for the benefits of CHLs, as their benefits ought to be self-evident to all but the most stiff-necked heads stuck in the sand, I do think it is advantageous to point out the reasons why the opposite - not permitting concealed carry - entails a host of problems in the body politic as well as in civilized society at large.
No doubt we are all familiar with the realization that to the criminal mindset, laws are by definition viewed as annoying suggestions rather than the fences necessary to protect society from it’s own baser elements. Neither are great leaps of inductive analysis required to imagine how forbidding lawful concealed carry of firearms (much less the ownership, possession and use thereof) smacks of preaching to the choir… no need to persuade good citizens to continue not breaking the law.
Since those of a criminal bent can hardly be expected to adequately respond to civilized society’s standards of behavior and the punitive consequences which accompany their violation, how are we, as self-repudiated victims, called upon to prophylactically respond to their felonious desires?
Why, in the type of communication they understand best, of course - that of violence (as do all people, incidentally, on an instinctual level - and why a toddler’s spanking is so much more effective than an attempt at reason); speech which translates quite well when given voice in the form of a gun’s threatened fire and thunder. Who among us can honestly admit to never having avoided a known wrong simply because the fear of injurious consequences outweighed the lure of desire?
When all else fails - a common occurrence in view of the universality incumbent to Murphy’s Law - the average perpetrator will suspend or renege the urge to commit crimes when faced with the prospect of an immediately painful reward to their illegal endeavors. While knowing that standing on the wrong end of a gun is often sufficient to dissuade bad behaviors, it is the foolish society which subsequently abolishes the ability of it’s good citizens to wield firearms.
Though our country’s greatest heroes are those who defend & protect us both across the street and across the oceans, we cannot reasonably expect them to be our guardian angels, incessantly available to keep us safe from willful harm. We are behooved, therefore, to don the rightful mantle of personal responsibility and stand ready to perform those duties in that most egoistic of motivations, that of self-preservation, and be prepared to remain ready, willing and able to deliver the sure promise of grievous bodily harm to those who would dare steal our God-given rights to the freedoms of liberty in the mere pursuit of their own perverse desires.
While none of us should risk falling into an insidious trap by even thinking of ending a life without grave contemplation, all who are found to be afraid to be the first on call to protect their own life & liberty are condemned as guilty of the most egregious sin against nature’s penultimate law - that of the survival instinct. Appealing to common sense, viewing the trouble associated with concealed carry as the lesser of two evils is a pragmatic exercise, and is perhaps best described by resorting to another warhorse maxim, “’Tis better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6…”
Upon that realization, it’s easy enough to reduce the psychological and emotional weight of a handgun down to it’s true critical mass - that burden which keeps us grounded in our societal interactions. There is little to improve one’s manners, attitude and character so much as the knowledge that any of our fellows potentially possesses an equal ability to violently recompense any injustices which we may direct at them.
Criminals typically don’t pay for their crimes in this life unless they are apprehended by the authorities, and then in only a fraction of cases. Regrettably, our legal system and it’s policies have in many ways devolved both process and punishment down to a relatively comfortable (if not outright desirable!) level of acceptance to perpetrators…
Does punishment prevent crime? Of course not! However, the threat of punishment is an effective deterrent to the commission of crime; although this axiom is dutifully carried out with yeoman-like ability by LEOs, it can only attain the full measure of it’s deterrent power when wielded by the people en masse. What criminal could avoid inoculative rehabilitation when faced with the prospect of every citizen carrying the means to administer an immediately violent punitive response to criminal behavior? Why, only the type that is destined to be weeded out of the garden of life - probably sooner than later - by society’s own process of natural selection.
CHLs represent perhaps the best iterations of one of mankind’s oldest laws - the Law of Retribution - or, “an eye for an eye”, and all people understand it on an instinctual basis - that of self-preservation. That, my friends, is why CHLs are the real reason crime doesn’t pay.
Mike Lazar is an intrepid engineer, eclectic artsmith and freelance writer/Sci-Fi author as well as a full-time Dad and Latin dance instructor in McKinney, Texas. His son serves in the Army.
CHLs – The Real Reason Crime Doesn’t Pay
Go ahead, admit it - some of you might be downright uncomfortable packing a concealed handgun from time to time; and even if you won’t (or can’t) ‘fess up, everyone knows someone who’d be afraid to have such death-dealing hardware at their ready disposal.
While I have no intention to deliberately make a case for the benefits of CHLs, as their benefits ought to be self-evident to all but the most stiff-necked heads stuck in the sand, I do think it is advantageous to point out the reasons why the opposite - not permitting concealed carry - entails a host of problems in the body politic as well as in civilized society at large.
No doubt we are all familiar with the realization that to the criminal mindset, laws are by definition viewed as annoying suggestions rather than the fences necessary to protect society from it’s own baser elements. Neither are great leaps of inductive analysis required to imagine how forbidding lawful concealed carry of firearms (much less the ownership, possession and use thereof) smacks of preaching to the choir… no need to persuade good citizens to continue not breaking the law.
Since those of a criminal bent can hardly be expected to adequately respond to civilized society’s standards of behavior and the punitive consequences which accompany their violation, how are we, as self-repudiated victims, called upon to prophylactically respond to their felonious desires?
Why, in the type of communication they understand best, of course - that of violence (as do all people, incidentally, on an instinctual level - and why a toddler’s spanking is so much more effective than an attempt at reason); speech which translates quite well when given voice in the form of a gun’s threatened fire and thunder. Who among us can honestly admit to never having avoided a known wrong simply because the fear of injurious consequences outweighed the lure of desire?
When all else fails - a common occurrence in view of the universality incumbent to Murphy’s Law - the average perpetrator will suspend or renege the urge to commit crimes when faced with the prospect of an immediately painful reward to their illegal endeavors. While knowing that standing on the wrong end of a gun is often sufficient to dissuade bad behaviors, it is the foolish society which subsequently abolishes the ability of it’s good citizens to wield firearms.
Though our country’s greatest heroes are those who defend & protect us both across the street and across the oceans, we cannot reasonably expect them to be our guardian angels, incessantly available to keep us safe from willful harm. We are behooved, therefore, to don the rightful mantle of personal responsibility and stand ready to perform those duties in that most egoistic of motivations, that of self-preservation, and be prepared to remain ready, willing and able to deliver the sure promise of grievous bodily harm to those who would dare steal our God-given rights to the freedoms of liberty in the mere pursuit of their own perverse desires.
While none of us should risk falling into an insidious trap by even thinking of ending a life without grave contemplation, all who are found to be afraid to be the first on call to protect their own life & liberty are condemned as guilty of the most egregious sin against nature’s penultimate law - that of the survival instinct. Appealing to common sense, viewing the trouble associated with concealed carry as the lesser of two evils is a pragmatic exercise, and is perhaps best described by resorting to another warhorse maxim, “’Tis better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6…”
Upon that realization, it’s easy enough to reduce the psychological and emotional weight of a handgun down to it’s true critical mass - that burden which keeps us grounded in our societal interactions. There is little to improve one’s manners, attitude and character so much as the knowledge that any of our fellows potentially possesses an equal ability to violently recompense any injustices which we may direct at them.
Criminals typically don’t pay for their crimes in this life unless they are apprehended by the authorities, and then in only a fraction of cases. Regrettably, our legal system and it’s policies have in many ways devolved both process and punishment down to a relatively comfortable (if not outright desirable!) level of acceptance to perpetrators…
Does punishment prevent crime? Of course not! However, the threat of punishment is an effective deterrent to the commission of crime; although this axiom is dutifully carried out with yeoman-like ability by LEOs, it can only attain the full measure of it’s deterrent power when wielded by the people en masse. What criminal could avoid inoculative rehabilitation when faced with the prospect of every citizen carrying the means to administer an immediately violent punitive response to criminal behavior? Why, only the type that is destined to be weeded out of the garden of life - probably sooner than later - by society’s own process of natural selection.
CHLs represent perhaps the best iterations of one of mankind’s oldest laws - the Law of Retribution - or, “an eye for an eye”, and all people understand it on an instinctual basis - that of self-preservation. That, my friends, is why CHLs are the real reason crime doesn’t pay.
Mike Lazar is an intrepid engineer, eclectic artsmith and freelance writer/Sci-Fi author as well as a full-time Dad and Latin dance instructor in McKinney, Texas. His son serves in the Army.