'An Armed Society Is...' by Joel Simon

Many thanks to Joel at TUAK for re-posting something I don't think I'd read before--it's from a few years back--except that you can also read it in most of the things that Joel says now.  (That's gratifying.)

From The Libertarian Enterprise, the article is worth the read in full.

I'll offer a teaser, but with a hitch:

And so at the very spot on which I had been welcomed to the town decades ago, I was welcomed back in the exact same manner after many wandering years.

Afterward I walked downtown for a while and thought about Heinlein's Dictum, that an armed society is a polite society. He was right as far as he went, but he didn't go far enough. The statement implies that armed people are polite because they are afraid of each other, and that's wrong.

An armed society is a friendly society. The people there can afford to be friendly, because they have nothing to fear from each other.

Now that gets right to the core of why so many don't get it.

The hitch is simply this:  the best writing is before that.  Joel has a gift for both writing, and for reflection.

Go.  Read.  Enjoy.