Yes, I used a click bait title, so sue me.
One of the recurring attacks/criticisms/insults levied against gun owners, especially concealed carrier permit holders, is that we (including the women) have small penises. In an attempt to feel better about ourselves, we carry a gun as a de facto prosthetic phallus, and if we were more secure in our manhood (including the women) we would not feel the need to carry a gun. This regular insult usually comes with a side order of other belittlement – that guns owners are fearful, cowardly, etc., which then comes back to us being phallicly insecure.
Well… rather than dispute the anti-gunners, I’m going to embrace my small penis (metaphorically speaking).
Classical art (Ancient Greece and Rome) found the the small penis to be an aesthetically pleasing. This was revitalized in Renaissance art, a prime example being Michelangelo’s David.
A large penis was considered grotesque and comical, a sign of barbarianism and being uncivilized. The Greek god Priapus is portrayed as having a large phallus. Priapus was thrown off of Mount Olympus by the other gods for his ugliness and foul-mindedness, and is often associated with rudeness and braying donkeys.
Now what does this have to gun ownership? One word: civilization.
Part of the Aristotelian idea of civilization was art (aesthetics), another was virtue. Classical philosophy was big on virtue. There are four classical Cardinal Virtues: Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, and Courage/Fortitude. This spawned the Roman ideals of virtue, which expanded on the Cardinal Virtues to include Virtus (manliness) and Pietas (duty to others), among others. Ancient cultures recognized that civilization could not exist without duty, justice, strength, and manliness.
Back 2007, MunchkinWrangler wrote a piece titled “The Gun is Civilization.” I invite you to read it. (Proper attribution here)
He makes a good point, but I feel compelled to add something that he implied but needs to be said overtly. A gun is civilization when in the hands of civilized people. Only a person with the virtues of restraint, justice, courage, and strength of character can wield a gun for good. We see far to much violence from people without virtue who wield a gun with malice.
Recently online, I have come across to articles from polar opposite sources, Slate and The Federalist, on the murder of Kevin Joseph Sutherland on a DC Subway in front of a group of bystanders who did nothing.
Call them beta males, call them sheeple, but what we saw was the result of a lack of virtue. Not one person had the courage or fortitude to due his duty to help his fellow man and a murder occurred. Barbarism won over civilization that day.
The laws of DC may have physically disarmed them but the culture emotionally disarmed them. Only cowards carry guns. Only the insecure feel the need to be armed. That’s what the CSGV tells us. But the unarmed, and presumably well endowed, men (and women) on those trains didn’t “man up” to helping one of their fellows. They bravely hid in the corner and averted their gaze.
On the other side of the country (metaphorically speaking), in the ignorant, uncultured, no-man’s land of Alabama, when a CCW permit holder sees the life of a store clerk being threatened by a criminal, he acts to save an innocent life.
And there you have it. Real cowardice vs. GSCV cowardice. Watch a man die vs. jump in and help.
If having a small penis (metaphorically speaking) is the price I pay for civilization, all accept that. Because the alternative is to be a braying jackass.
There is in fact no Major Caudill
https://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/on-plagiarism/
I like the piece otherwise, though.
Right out of the gate and I screw something up. Yep, that’s something I’d do. I didn’t know about the plagiarism. I remember reading that piece on another gun blog some time ago and did a search for it which brought me to the link I used. I will have to check my sources better some in the future. Thanks.
I think it’s been read by a lot more people underr” Major Caudill” than “Marko Kloos” so it’s kinda expected by now I think. 😉
“Only cowards carry guns. Only the insecure feel the need to be armed.
That’s what the CSGV tells us.”
What makes the Police fundamentally different to CSGV?
The reason I carry hollwpoints is bc the Police do.
The reason the Police carry is fundamentally the same reason that I do.
Why am I different to CSGV even though I offer the same reasons?
I must be me.
You are different because you haven’t been issued the official talisman of the only ones.
I say that, were you in that train on the DC Metro, and you stepped in to help that man, you are a fool. DC has passed one law after another to disarm the people there, and the citizens of DC clearly are in favor of that. Why do I have a duty to protect someone who clearly hadn’t taken steps towards his own safety. Hell, the police don’t even have a duty to protect, regardless of what they plaster on their cars. On top of that, if I did step in, and somehow didn’t get myself killed by that same knife, I’d be crucified by the media for assaulting that poor misunderstood choir boy/honor student, and probably bankrupt to boot from lawsuits. So I should risk my life, and my family’s entire future, over some stranger.
Nope. They want to be disarmed. They can suffer the consequences, good and hard. I’ll die to protect my family. I’m not doing it for some stranger who probably voted for those people who keep me disarmed when I visit up there.
Back in my young professional urban life, I used to take the El downtown every day. This was just before cell phones did much more than call and text, so not much to do on the train besides read the paper and stare at the Chicago skyline. Living in the city, you kind of build up your own bubble when out and about. Try not to look too many people in the eye, keep to one side of the sidewalk, etc. And with the random homeless person or other undesirable, there is certainly the urge to keep to your damn self a lot of the time while out. Learned survival instincts, I suppose. But those instincts are exactly the opposite of what’s needed when someone needs help.
One morning, I moved onto the train with the usual cathartic indifference that myself and everyone else had while commuting to work. A young lady on the platform, not even 10 feet away, started asking for help. She was grabbing onto a young man, who was anxiously wanting to high-tail it down the stairs. I’m guessing he nabbed her phone or iPod, or possibly her wallet. She was looking through the open door of the train, and her voice got louder and more desperate each time she said “help”. It was almost surreal, like my brain was trying to process something that isn’t supposed to happen. There must have been at least 20 other people as close as me to the open door.
Not one of us moved a muscle. Not one. Oh sure, we all looked up to see what all the yelling was about. But not one person stepped back off the train to help this poor girl. Myself included. After 7 or 8 seconds, the doors closed and the train shuffled off towards the Armitage stop.
The guilt didn’t take long to really sink in. By the time I got downtown, I was seething at myself. I don’t have some sort of hero complex, never been in the military, wasn’t terribly good at sports. Alpha male I am not. But hell, I was a lifeguard for 9 summers at a 2-acre water park. I had no problem diving into water to save complete strangers, so why the hell did I freeze?
I’m not sure what I would do if the situation was more violent, as in the DC subway attack. But ever since that day on the El platform, I have resolved to do SOMETHING when someone asks for help and is in trouble. My body can (hopefully) heal if it needs to, but my soul will be seriously damaged if I ever freeze again.
That’s a powerful story. Thanks for sharing.
You froze due to the “normalcy bias” Google it.
Also Google Rory Miller and Facing Violence/Meditations on Violence…discusses the freeze…
Must be careful mixing in, no matter how much you might want to. Aside from the obvious risks of biting off more than you can chew, there may be legal issues too.
In my state, if you come to the defense of another and that other wouldn’t be justified in using force in self-defense* it doesn’t matter how justified YOU were… you’re getting prosecuted.
I’m not arguing one way or another, just saying that you should know the issues and the risks before joining the dance in progress.
* (just one example: the person you’re defending, before your arrival, was the one who started the fight)
But back to the dick joke segment of the evening…
My standard response to gun-grabber “compensating” BS is to look innocent and ask the goober in question, “If I’m carrying to compensate for the size of my package, wouldn’t I want to be carrying a gun that was, ya know, bigger than my wedding tackle?”
Works great if you’re carrying a Government Model.
“So, the larger the gun the smaller the organ?”
“YES!”
“I carry a North American Mini.”
We joke that Major Caudill is Marko’s alternate identity now… And agree with the rest…
https://lookingforlissa.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/img_0676.jpg
’nuff Said!