I often find The Gun Is Civilization by retired Major L . Caudill of the Marine Corps , to be very accurate . The Bundy Ranch episode illustrated this point exactly . Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another reason and force . If you want me to do something for you , you have a choice of either convincing me via argument or forcing me to do your bidding under threat of force . Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories , without exception . Reason or force , that ' s it . In a truly moral and civilized society , people exclusively interact through persuasion . Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm , as paradoxical as it may sound to some . When I carry a gun , you cannot deal with me by force . You have to use reason and try to persuade me , because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force . The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100 pound woman on equal footing with a 220 pound mugger , a 75 year old retiree on equal footing witha 19 year old gang banger , and a single guy on equal footing with a car load of drunken guys with baseball bats . The gun removes the disparity in physical strength , size , or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender . There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations . These are the people who think that we ' d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society , because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job . That , of course , is only true if the mugger ' s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiatit has no validity when most of a mugger ' s potential marks are armed . People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young , the strong , and the many , and that ' s the exact opposite of a civilized society . A mugger , even an armed one , can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly . Then there ' s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury . This argument is fallacious in several ways . Without guns involved , confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser . People who think that fists , bats , sticks , or stones don ' t constitute lethal force , watch too much TV , where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst . The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender , not the stronger attacker . If both are armed , the field is level . The gun is the only weapon that ' s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter . It simply wouldn ' t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn ' t both lethal and easily employable . When I carry a gun , I don ' t do so because I am looking for a fight , but because I ' m looking to be left alone . The gun at my side means that I can not be forced , only persuaded . I don ' t carry it because I ' m afraid , but because it enables me to be unafraid . It doesn ' t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason , only the actions of those who would do so by force . It removes force from the equation and that ' s why carrying a gun is a civilized act .