Mutually Assured Disaster: Open Carry Plus Stand Your Ground Gun Laws

In which we take a closer look at what might happen if we’re all “good guys” carrying AR-15s. A little game theory, the Cold War, and some ancient Roman history are employed to bolster the case that you generally want less things that go boom — guns or nuclear weapons.

I recently wrote a Medium piece about an under-appreciated Star Trek TOS episode Mirror, Mirror. You should watch it for yourself, but I’ll summarize the main points. Through a transporter error, Kirk and crew are beamed into a parallel universe where the peaceful Federation is replaced by the cruel Terran Empire. Terrans believe everyone should be heavily armed, and killing fellow crew for job advancement was their Prime Directive. It was basically the Roman Empire with phasers.

At the time, circa late 1960s, Star Trek along with lots of other sci-fi — unfortunately, it’s time to take another look at Soylent Green — was good at describing possible dystopias that were still distance enough so we could gain comfort when we returned to our own more pleasant timeline. However, as with many of the better Star Trek plots, there was just enough there to connect it to contemporary life.

Little could we have known, but the dystopia of Mirror, Mirror has now moved uncomfortably closer to our own timeline. There are now great swathes of the US where you can open carry a firearm without a permit as long you’re legally entitled to own a weapon — over the age of 21, and can walk and talk at…