Given my programming, in Quakerism, you might assume I'm "anti-gun" right out of the gate, and you'd be right in a way, except that being "anti-gun" doesn't mean anything super obvious. The guns don't just disappear. Quakers are against outward violence i.e. knives and maces, bombs and catapults, bows and arrows, all fall into the same category as guns, when used as anti-student / anti-faculty devices.
However, these same tools may have other uses, obvious in the case of dynamite and cutlery, the sports of archery and target practice. The devices themselves are less relevant than the mindset with which they're taken up. What's the psychology? Are we hunting humans again?
George Fox talked more about swords as carrying firearms in his day and age was not as customary. "Wear it as long as thou canst" is how it comes down to us, in archaic language. He was betting that those convinced of Quakerism would eventually likely cease wearing weapons as a part of their costume. They would become persuaded that the real battles were more hidden (in the sense of occult), more invisible. Outward weapons are of limited utility when what needs to be countered is more intelligent, a programmed pattern, a meme virus of some kind.
When President Eisenhower warned Americans about the MIC (military-industrial complex), a rather egghead thing to do (but generals are eggheads by and large, and presidents always), he was talking about a form of bureaucratic legalese, laced with whatever values. Bucky came along and called it LAWCAP, which morphed into Grunch in his writings. Everyone matures and distills their own lingo, paradoxically expressing meanings more clearly when idiosyncratic. Bucky's language is nothing if not idiosyncratic even while treating of the "generalized principles".
The MIC is a "complex" in the sense a psychology or mindset is a complex. We can call it groupthink, i.e. these complexes are not confined to the brains of single individuals. Which is why guns are ineffective in countering complexes.
Shooting the patient, the one with symptoms, only feeds the paranoia of those targeted, which stimulates genetic searches for antidotes, ways of coping. A system under attack learns to defend. Telling all the gun owners that Big Brother has plans to take all their guns away, is a way of scaring up a reaction, such as more funding for the NRA.
I prefer a more anthropological approach. How do guns play a role in coming of age narratives, and in rites of initiation? How does one ascend the hierarchy in some gang, company, or priesthood?
I'm suggesting that Quakers tend to get snobby, thinking those resorting to outward war have yet to grapple with root causes. But rampant malign neglect of one's duty, to deep think instead of group think, may result in atrophy within an intelligence community overall. Lights grow dim at 1501 Cherry Street (Philadelphia), if / when the AFSC stops analyzing the MIC.
