No, I don't avoid eye contact with military or police. Just with grown men who are obsessive about guns, who regulary go on about who they are going to shoot if they cross their path, who still live with their mother and consider themselves unelected judge,jury and executioner. I find it strangely threatening. Don't know why....
Maybe it's because you indulge in these fantasies about such people?
Personally, I've never known such a person, and if I did, I'd tell him to get an education, or lose the firearm(s).
And if you avoid eye contact with them, that says far more about you than them.
So what about nice guys who help bugs out of swimming pools so they don't drown and would only ever hurt anyone if it was for the defense of other people?
Nice image, with the drowning. I do in fact fish bugs out of swimming pools, and carry spiders out of the house. The image brings up another thought, from being a lifeguard for seven years....
Carrying a firearm brings the same responsibility as being a lifeguard: you've prepared yourself to do the business of protecting, and put yourself out there, and thereby assumed a duty. It isn't just the Old Testament that declares that the guy who is armed, sees an assault on another person, and does nothing is as much a rapist or murderer as the one who committed the actual act -- and those who refuse to be prepared to defend their fellow citizens against crime are only a notch behind.
Maybe you're too trusting? While there is the whole respect for authority thing, I don't trust police and military being the only people allowed the tools to defend. It's just...not safe for too few people to be entrusted with so much power while everyone else is expected to surrender it to them.
The police are far too corrupt, far too willing to push their authority on people, far too ready to cross the line and enforce not the law but their personal preferences already. The attitude that they hold the authority, and the rest of us are sheep, is widespread, and dangerous.
Me...I'd prefer a shield to a sword any day, but you have to work with what you have, right? And martial arts training can only go so far if the opposition is armed with guns, ya know? ^_^
...not to mention defensive technology has been behind offensive tech for over a century, though that may be changing in the near future...I still probably won't get a neat shield though. Nice thing is that there aren't any laws against carrying THEM yet as far as I know. Not that they'd be much use against guns anyway...
The shield and sword illustration is telling: the sword was a tool that required extensive training to use to much effect, so those who could afford such training lorded it over others with impunity. They were an invitation to tyranny, and the invitation was accepted regularly. One reason that tales such as Zorro are so liked is that they ring a bell with our realization that tyranny is too common, and those with the skill and power to fight it are few.
Firearms changed that: the American Revolution would never have worked if "peasants" and "rabble" (to steal Lord Cornwallis' terms) hadn't been able to face "nobility" as equals.
It's also telling in that no matter how good the man with the sword, a man with a bow and arrow could strike him down -- and the best defense against the man with that bow was another with his own. The widespread laws against crossbows illustrate the awareness by the ruling class that such tools were levelers; they made equality not just a philosophical truth but one a person could put into practice. Those laws also point up another fact: historically, the imposition of laws against personal weapons of self-defense have always, invariably, been the bedfellow of authoritarianism.
Today's version of the shield is, of course, kevlar and its successors. Fables about "cop-killer" bullets aside, if a person wanted to wear body-armor underwear all the time, fears of violent assault could well be reduced. Yet the invulnerable man has a weakness: invulnerability is no weapon, and it takes a weapon to defend one's family, friends, neighbors, and other fellow humans against those who would use weapons indiscriminately.
What it comes down to is that a projectile weapon is best fought by another projectile weapon. And while Jeff Snyder is right that we are by and large a nation of cowards, a significant truth is that
this applies to the criminal as well: statistics show that in the vast majority of instances, a criminal faced with an armed (intended) victim turns and runs.
Where the Confederate battle flag comes in here is that it declares a refusal to turn and run, and I suspect that subconsciously that's what a lot of people who fly it mean by it. It's a declaration akin to, while arguably less appropriate than, the "Don't tread on me" banners of the Revolution. What the South learned, at the end, was that defiance itself didn't bring victory, because those willing to inflame the masses, ignore the Constitution, and bring to bear overwhelming force while totally discounting casualties could carry the day. Since we have an administration at the present time which shares all those attributes with Lincoln's, one may well wonder if we the people are going to willingly roll over and play southerner to Washington's carpetbaggers, all without a fight.
Maybe next time you see that banner with its crossed bars and bright stars, perhaps that's the question you ought to ask: will I stand against the abusers of power, or will I roll over and bare my throat?
I happen to LIKE that I don't notice the color of someone's skin.
