An Open Letter from Author Alan Korwin

Page Nine #214 -- January 31, 2024

I’m a Utopian Pacifist. Although I’ve written ten successful books on American gun law*, I support no weapons of any kind on the surface of the Earth, in an era of enduring peace, prosperity, harmony and abundance.

It turns out this is impossible (utopian). The problem is The Four Horsemen of Human Havoc: angry hungry stupid and wicked.

So I support disarming everybody, bad guys first. This is also utopian.

Until then, I find it hard to justify disarming any innocent sane person.

•••

If I could wave a wand and make guns disappear, the brutal communist Chinese dictatorship would make new ones. And the Italians (Beretta), Brazilians (Taurus), Russians (AK-47), Austrians (Glock)—all armed nations would be in business making the iron river. Including basement tinkerers.

Wands are fiction but you can imagine a gun-free world—just think back to pre-gun times.

What you get is Genghis Kahn with rampaging hordes, Julius Caesar and Roman Legion crucifixions, Vlad the Impaler, universal serfdom and endless millions horribly murdered. A gun-filled world paradoxically turns out to be more civilized, with safer neighborhoods—even though evil people and government tyrants rampage constantly. Our guns help control them.

A gun-filled world is actually more

civilized than a gunless one, with sword-

bearing bad guys committing slaughter

against weaker people.

Many people—maybe you—are misled about all this for two reasons. One, you get no real education on the subject, and two, because if it’s in the news, and it’s about guns, it’s probably 100% wrong, leaving you misinformed. Let me support that.

For example, we saw saturation coverage recently about four people shot in Philly. They weren’t shot, they were murdered. Media’s subtle word choices affect everything. Murder is a crime. Murder puts the emphasis on the murderer. Media promotes and protects criminals, for complex reasons. Shooting on the other hand is a sport, an honorable long-running sport. Media plays this down. Shooting is the second most popular participant sport, ahead of the elitist game golf (#3). Media avoids this hard fact altogether.

Your entire perception shifts when you confront the criminal act, which media for many reasons disguises or avoids. Seven thousand inner-city black murders annually (FBI stats, 19 per day) aren’t solved, prosecuted—or covered. How would your perception shift if that got saturation coverage? When so-called “gun control” becomes crime control we’ll be closer to peace.

At least one million DGUs (Defensive Gun Uses) every year are censored. How would your perceptions change if you faced saturation coverage of lives saved and crimes prevented by the presence of a citizen’s gun, which more often than not isn’t even fired? You benefit from armed neighbors—a serious crime deterrent, the “free-rider” effect—hidden from view. Police call those vanquished criminals “the good-riddance factor.” You’ve never heard this before, right?

We also face hidden medical problems, hoplophobia—which is fear of weapons. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Ed. 5) and legacy media obscures that. Inaccurate easy focus on guns should be on criminals, mental derangement and lack of impulse control. Criminal ideation, which isn’t just displayed but promoted in modern media, plays a role as well.

The Nation Is Clearly Divided About Guns

America basically has two camps: The “Just leave us alone,” camp, and the “We want to control you” camp. These are irreconcilable human and political characteristics. They divide (imperfectly) into two political parties. You know which is which.

If you ever entertained this utopian idea, “They should just take all the guns away”—ask yourself, “Who is they”? Who makes them give up their guns? Should we just leave “them” armed because police are so good? And how would mass disarmament get enforced against armed people? That delicate balance of power between armed “officials” and an armed public is what created the freest nation ever known. That was our Founders’ brilliance—evil exists, give the innocent a literal fighting chance.

Look deeper at crime prevention. That, and self-defense, are honorable things, recognized in the Bible and since the earlier Code of Hammurabi (c. 1755 B.C.). Innocent life and your homes are precious. These need protecting. Our strict American self-defense laws are clear, proper and deserve support, especially considering corruption in leadership, judicial systems and among authorities. Angry, hungry, stupid and wicked people pose a relentless threat.

The Bottom Line

You and I aren’t required to protect ourselves, which is good. Instead, you are free to do so, or non-violently “let lions eat you” and your family. I support this. It’s a matter of pacifism and free choice. We can also use anything at hand, or the best things available, to protect ourselves and survive—at your own option. Do nothing and perish if you choose, saving lions. But it is unjust and tyrannical to compel me or anyone to die for lack of good tools or arbitrary morality that puts lions ahead of me.

When thoughts turn to banning arms “for safety,” remember: In dictatorships the spoken word is recognized as more dangerous than arms. “We would not allow ourselves to be challenged with guns, why would we allow that with words, when that is far more dangerous.” –Josef Stalin. Guard with jealous attention against those who would infringe on your speech.

A closing thought about news reports:

Watch out for “we” and “I think” and “saturation coverage.” These are clues, “tells,” that you’re not getting news. “I think” means news has ended and opinion follows. Read that line again. And always figure out who “we” is and their agenda. When all so-called "news" reports are the same, they're coming from one source, that's not good, recognize that. Also, distinguish between conspiracies, which are constant and real (e.g., government agencies colluding with big tech to affect elections) and conspiracy theories (like a secret society eating babies in a pizza-parlor basement) that are lunacy.

I stand by my philosophy, and await the day when evil evaporates and guns are no longer needed. Until then, the Marines have it right: Peace through superior firepower. Do not submit to elitist demands to disarm you.

* The Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and Virginia Gun Owner’s Guides, Gun Laws of America, Supreme Court Gun Cases, The Heller Case—Gun Rights Affirmed, Your First Gun, and After You Shoot—Your Gun’s Hot, the Perp’s Not, Now What?