This type of question always reminds me of the fact that was explained well by Major Caudill: The gun is civilization.
"The Gun Is Civilization"
by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and
force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of
either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under
threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two
categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through
persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and
the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm,
as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use
reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your
threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on
equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal
footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal
footing with a carload of drunken guys with baseball bats.
The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers
between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad
force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more
civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes
it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true
if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or
by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential
marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the
young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a
civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a
successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force
monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that
otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in
several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the
physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People, who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal
force, watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it
with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier
works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If
both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an
octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't
work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily
employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but
because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I
cannot be forced only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but
because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those
who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those
who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... and
that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.