If good fences make good neighbors, then surely, well armed citizens make for good manners.  Just as respect for another's privacy and personal boundaries paradoxically creates common bonds, the expectation that those around us are capable of standing up for themselves, or defending their own lives if necessary, establishes an equality among strangers otherwise possessing vastly different natural strengths.  The "woke" victimhood cult dedicated to confiscating guns steadily ignores this point. 

"Woke" culture, such as it is, may be the most parasitic, selfish, and unimpressive shared creed to clog so many human minds.  It offers nothing original or enlightening, artistic or inspiring, but rather picks at the ordinary sores of Western civilization's profound accomplishments, preaching grievance and spreading acrimony, tunneling through society's rot much the same way dung beetles feed and breed in chambers of filth.  Since morals, customs, and proper etiquette have been jettisoned so that "woke" scolds may scream and bellyache to the world, these mental gnats believe that "good manners" are archaic social chains from another era, or worse, proof that a racist, patriarchal system of behaviors exists to keep women and minorities under perpetual control.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

For as good manners do reflect an accumulation of customs that allow human society to separate itself from mere beasts, they have also always served a basic need to demonstrate to absolute strangers when a person means no harm.  Just as with good fences, good manners provide humans with an unspoken language capable of communicating both mutual respect and desired peace.  Well armed men tend to behave deliberately and courteously toward one another because to act brashly and contemptuously can lead to violence or even death.  There are many reasons we shake hands, or cross on certain sides of the street, or doff our caps, or nod our heads, but underlying most of these reasons is a keen understanding that doing so communicates peaceful intent.  Manners, far from the baroque trifle that the "woke" deride, are safety mechanisms against violence.  For anyone in doubt of that truth, consider that violent gang members may prey viciously on civilian victims, but they interact with one another according to elaborate rules connoting respect.  From prison life to mafia weddings, perceived insult can turn deadly.  When those who are willing to use force are put into the same space, good manners flourish as a failsafe.

In my estimation, we are all safer when as many American civilians as possible are armed.  It has been said that gun rights are women's rights, and to a certain extent, I heartily agree.  Although the great Marxist deceivers preach an end to biological sex and often recklessly prod women to engage in dangerous behaviors — walking alone at night, traveling the world solo, barhopping without group protection — in a misguided effort to prove they can do anything men can do, most women are no match for men twice their weight.  When women learn to handle firearms responsibly, however, they are a far greater force for equality between the sexes than the pink-hat brigade of whiny screechers could ever be.  No woman on the frontier protecting the family's homestead was complete without her rifle, and no woman living in today's increasingly lawless society is complete without the means and capacity to put down quickly any potential attacker, no matter the aggressor's size.  

Gun rights are women's rights, but they are also human rights.  No person — regardless of sex, size, color, nationality, or any other phenotypic reality — should ever be forced into a position where self-defense is not an option.  Any person walking down the street should be in near total control over whether that walk will be his last.  Police forces, no matter how vigilant or dedicated, do not supplant a civilian's sacred duty to fight back when pressed.

Life, liberty, and ownership over the fruits of one's labor — these are fundamental human rights that no government can legitimately deny.  When governments do so, when they fail in their chief obligations to the citizenry and betray their only purpose for existing, then it becomes imperative for the citizenry to take such actions as to ensure the continued protection and preservation of life, liberty, and property in their government's stead.

Armed citizens promote good manners not only among other citizens, but also between citizens and their government.  And only armed citizens may rectify the harms caused from government's abject failure, delinquency, or outright hostile intent.  In the United States today, a person is never less safe than when visiting the lawless gun-free zones of Democrat-controlled city-states and never more secure than when traveling through regions of the country where the culture of gun ownership is sacrosanct.

Owning a weapon and knowing how to use it responsibly mean that you have accepted total stewardship over God's tremendous gift of life.  What He gave you generously, you will not abandon out of timidity or fear; rather, you will defend it courageously to the last breath.  It is a recognition that you comprehend how precious and priceless all life is and why life and liberty are worth every ounce of fight.  Just as self-reliance prepares one to save others in distress, competent self-defense prepares one to save lives otherwise lost. 

If anyone needed a fresh lesson in how critical it is for citizens to own firearms, the War in Ukraine provides only the latest example.  The United States and its allies have poured tens of billions of dollars' worth of military equipment, mobile weapons platforms, small arms, and bullets of all calibers into Ukraine, so that civilians can take up arms against their Russian invaders.  Nobody sent environmentally friendly, biodegradable "green" hopes and dreams; when the wolves come knocking at your door, only tactical force and firepower will do.

Our grandparents knew this fundamental truth, and if Americans desire an enduring nation, their grandchildren must relearn this truth again, too — quickly.  The Ukraine War has been going on for eight months, and every single day it persists, it furnishes a vivid reminder why nations are most secure when their people are securely armed.

The War in Ukraine, China's potential invasion of Taiwan, and the dozens of hot war zones extant around the globe today are all critical lessons for those who remain queasy around guns.  Let the unanswered cries of murdered, unarmed victims and future victims stand as testament to the enduring truth that civilian disarmament leads indisputably to loss of life, land, and fragile rights.

There's a reason the Second Amendment was added right at the top of the Bill of Rights — because disarming civilians of their weapons is always the first step toward tyranny.  It is why no slave — from ancient times to modern Africa and the Middle East — is permitted to own a weapon.  It is why the murderous totalitarians of the last hundred years all seized civilian firearms upon coming to power.  It is why leftist collaborators who today crave government control at the expense of individuals' inherent freedoms so vocally attack gun rights in Canada, throughout Europe, across Australia and New Zealand, and in the blue hellholes of the United States.  A citizen unable to defend his own life cannot defend his liberty, and a population that cannot defend its liberty cannot protect its own lives.

Think of the Second Amendment as the Founding Fathers' general reminder for future American governments to maintain good manners.  Good manners between governments and citizens, after all, are just beneficial mores ensuring we all remain friends.

Image via Pixabay.