Yes, I want YOU to carry a gun
I'm not ordering you to do so, so don't get bent out of shape over my wish.
I doesn't matter to me if you are a "felon" or if some local gang says it can tell you not to carry. Those are things you must settle inside yourself. It doesn't even depend on whether your intent is to go out and harm the innocent. If everyone carried you wouldn't survive long enough to pursue your career. In the long run more innocent lives would be saved. The good guys vastly outnumber the bad guys, so any general increase in the number of guns being carried will arm a lot more good guys.
It isn't "wrong" to carry a gun. It can be wrong to use it in certain ways.
Yes, there is a political aspect to this. The more people who carry a gun (or even a sword, or???) the less likely it is that the thugs will dare try to tell everyone that such is not "allowed". There is safety in numbers, because there is power in numbers. It's part of the reason that no large-scale gang of thugs has yet completely criminalized tobacco. It is too common. Call it "collectivism" if you want, but people coming together, voluntarily, to fight off a common threat is part of the benefit of being human.
How many cops would be willing to tackle and kick pregnant women in a public place if they could see, or just knew, that everyone around was armed? How many peaceable people who happen to be "open carrying" would be attacked by cops if almost everyone around was known or suspected to be armed?
But, just like the way tobacco is being incrementally demonized, possibly on the way to prohibition, guns are becoming an "oddity" in some places. Incrementalism has made the sight of a gun on the hip rare in far too many places. It has made it unlikely that a mugger will face a target who is carrying concealed. By seeming to agree, through your actions, that carrying a weapon is "extreme" you fall right into the hands of the anti-liberty bigots. That would bother me. By allowing guns to be incrementally pushed out of sight it is making it easier for the thugs to make up more severe rules, and get away with it, which will make the sight of guns even less common. You may not care about this political action, but it is affecting real people and costing lives.
The non-political side of this is that I have lived in armed camps, and they are wonderfully peaceful. (I'm not talking about an armed camp in a time of war; during a time of war the "camp" will be armed whether you like it or not, but the arms may be mostly in the hands of the bad guys.) I am talking about the peace that comes from a "society" that doesn't beg for someone else to protect the individuals who are a part of it, and the peace that comes from being prepared to deal with the problems that might arise. Self responsibility.
You say you don't "need" to carry. OK. I'm glad you can see the future, but I can't. There are a few things that I think separate humans from other critters: the ability (and physical need) to make and use weapons, the ability to make fire, and our reasoning ability. I believe you should exercise those at all times. Those are the things that you can't really improvise to get around the lack of- when you need one of those things you get no second chance. None of those things is a magical cure-all, and there will be situations that you aren't prepared for no matter what, but why handicap yourself voluntarily right from the beginning? It just makes no sense to me.
Now, if you don't want to carry for whatever reason, don't. It's your choice. I wish you'd reconsider, since I want to live in a polite society again. And more guns makes us all- except the thugs- more safe. But don't complain that because I wish you would carry, and you don't, I am being extreme or not respecting your views. The complaints I get from this make me think that the objectors feel guilty for their choice. If you feel guilty maybe you need to change something.
Libertarian/Anarchist
dullhawk@hotmail.com
KentForLiberty.com