Article published in Liberty, November 1997, p. 8 [Also available in an Italian version]

 

The Right to Sleep and Bear Arms
by
Pierre Lemieux

I had such a pedagogically subversive experience this Summer that I hope Liberty readers will forgive my relating another personal adventure. I happened to be camping in the woods ("where the state is nowhere to be seen," as Thoreau said) with a young woman who had never been initiated to arms. Since she did not have a slave's soul and since (of course) I had brought guns with me, I naturally taught her how to use them.

I started with the usual theoretical course on how guns work and how to safely handle them -- check whether the gun is loaded, don't point it towards something you do not intend to shoot, don't put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to pull it and, well, safety time ends when the marching boots get close. Then, I lent her one of my guns for some practice shooting. Walking armed in the woods, she said, "I feel very empowered."

In Japan, it is apparently a great proof of trust to let somebody sleep near you, "for he could easily kill you during your sleep." The more so, of course, if your sleeping companion is armed. So, after the night had extinguished the last horizon fires, I suggested to my lady companion that, like me, she put a loaded gun alongside her sleeping bag, which she gladly did. And we slept the sleep of the just.

Pity the poor opponents of the right to keep and bear arms! They must distrust just everybody except criminals and except the tyrant to whom they concede the armed monopoly of their protection.

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Liberty Magazine, Copyright 1997, Liberty Foundation