The Cop on the Bus

"Is there a cop on the bus?"

This is an important question for a bad guy (BG: meaning a criminal, outlaw, psychopath and similar folks who don't shy from harming other people) to ask. If there is a cop on the bus, then contemplating a crime there becomes much less attractive. If a BG thinks there might be a cop on the bus, the likelihood of committing a crime on the bus is extremely low. Other busses without cops onboard are much more attractive. 

Substitute a legally armed citizen for a cop on the bus. While he or she isn't a cop, the principle remains the same. Committing a violent crime on the bus carries extreme risk for the BG if there might to be an armed citizen on the bus. 

This is fundamentally why "no gun" places makes absolutely no sense. BGs don't follow laws or rules so they will take a gun whenever they want. Knowing that they are most likely the only ones armed can give them permission to do whatever they want. 

Why the "bus" owners think differently is the result of not thinking at all, but, instead they surrender to the fear and loathing they associate with guns. 

Violence is, unfortunately, with us. It always has been, even in pre-historic times. Archeology tells us that. The methods and means of violent acts have changed over time. Initially, in terms of tools, violence to others was probably perpetrated with clubs and rocks – sharp and otherwise. As human kind's ingenuity and intelligence has grown, we developed tools that inflicted violence at a distance, then a greater distance and which amplified the force applied by one person. Without a long and boring recitation of this progression, suffice it to say that we eventually developed firearms (ignoring the other various and numerous means we have found to inflict violence on others).

Since neither violence or weapons are going away any time soon, and protection from these methods of violence depends on at least parity with the aggressor's methods, it appears foolish in the extreme to ceed the considerable advantage of weapons to the aggressors.

Why would one wish to make people (and themselves) subject to the violence of others by taking away the means of protection and fighting back? Those who would "outlaw" firearms want to give away their right to do so, but more insidiously, want to force the rest of us to do likewise. Do they seriously think that BGs (criminals, outlaws, psychopaths, sadists and their ilk) will obey their laws, give up their means of violence? I suspect that BGs in general relish the thought of an unarmed citizenry. 

The basic fact is that if a criminal thinks he or she might get shot by a citizen upon whom they wish to prey, the chances of them trying will be seriously diminished.

We all need to be cops on the bus, or at least have the BGs think so and not be able to tell the difference.