A meme that made the social media rounds in the wake of the school shooting in Florida reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the legitimate ethical basis for violence.

It reads as follows:

“When my child hits another child with a stick, I don’t blame the stick, but I still take the stick away.”

The meme was intended to make an unassailable case for government gun control. But if you play the scenario out to its logical conclusion, the entire argument falls apart.

Few people would dispute the right to use force to take a stick away from a child using it to batter another child. It doesn’t even have to be your kid. If you see a child assaulting somebody, you have every right – and perhaps even an ethical responsibility – to step in.

Yes. You take away the stick.

But does it follow that  I now have the right to take away the stick my neighbor uses to prop open his window just because some kid started wailing on another kid? Would I be justified in taking away some random woman’s walking stick? Does the fact that one kid used a stick violently justify taking every stick away from every person in my neighborhood? Do I suddenly have the moral authority to gather every stick out of every yard in town and burn them all?

No. Of course not.

When you put it in those terms, the “logic” of the meme melts. Most people intuitively understand the difference between taking a stick away from somebody who is using it to hurt another person and taking sticks away from peaceful people minding their own business.

There is actually a fundamental ethical principle buried in this illustration – the distinction between aggressive and defensive violence.

Aggression is “the initiation of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property.” Note the emphasized word – initiation. Therein lies the key.

If we accept the basic principle of self-ownership, it follows that aggression – the initiation of force –  is not morally/ethically justified. We have the right to resist it – with force if necessary.  We can use defensive force to fend off aggressive force.

Aggressive violence is not morally justified.

Defensive force is.

It logically follows that you have every right to use force to stop the kid from hitting his classmate with a stick. You can take away his weapon and stop his aggression.

On the other hand, you can’t ethically justify aggression to take a stick away from the guy using it to prop open his window just because little Johnny whacked Timmy on the playground. In fact, the window-prop guy would be justified in resisting the initiation of force against him with defensive force of his own.

Luckily, he has a stick.

Somehow, this clear ethical distinction seems to get lost when the state enters the scene. Most people seem to think the state has some moral authority to employ aggression on their behalf. While they would readily admit they don’t have any moral/ethical basis to take away my neighbor’s window prop because sticks scare them, they think if they get enough people together who agree, and they channel their violence through the government, somehow their aggression suddenly becomes justified.

It does not.

Regardless, window-prop guy has a choice. He can give up his window prop, or he can resist and risk being locked in a cage. Or worse. Ironically, the mob that supports taking the poor guy’s window prop thinks it holds the moral high ground.

The state empowers people to enforce their opinions at gunpoint. They wrap it up in legislative language and pontificate about some kind of non-existent “social contract,” but when you boil all down, it’s nothing but raw aggression – coercion and violence. These people are no better than the punk clubbing kids on the playground.