A Killing Ground

[The American Left] can’t understand how an armed citizen can walk away from a fight in order to keep from having it escalate out of control. Anti-gun schemers also don’t understand the self-reliant and self-assured know they are capable of acting properly if forced to defend their own life, or to stand down when it isn’t necessary. [Buckeye Firearms Org]

Were it reasonable to expect that every armed citizen carries the burden of lethal force as seriously as he or she transports their concealed weapon through a public sphere simmering with petty personal grievances, one may realistically hope that tragedies like the killing of Trayvon Martin would be extremely rare. I fear that this is a false hope.

“Every handgun owned in America is an implicit declaration of war on one’s neighbor. When the chips are down, its owner says, he will not trust any other arbiter but force personally wielded.”

Don B. Kates, Jr., Public Opinion: The Effects of Extremist Discourse on the Gun Debate