Utah man accused of telling 4-year-old to shoot at police after dispute at McDonald's

[Dial H For Hero]

30. The phrase first appeared in Robert A. Heinlein's 1942 science fiction novel "Beyond This Horizon".

In the novel, duels and the carrying of arms are socially accepted ways of maintaining civility in public. A man can wear distinctive clothing to show his unwillingness to duel, but this results in an inferior social status.

It's notable that the main character, in the course of the first pages, first comes close to a duel over a spilled bowl of soup (the duel being defused by way of a formalized apology), and shortly thereafter has an actual duel with a drunk.

The point being that in context the phrase is not meant to imply that an armed society results in everybody being nice to each other, but rather that the consequence of so many people being openly armed and ready to draw at the drop of a hat has resulted in most such confrontations (but hardly all of them) being prevented only by way of overly polite rituals. As the character says, "...to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both."

Both pro- and anti- gun rights people who merely quote the six word phrase almost inevitably do so out of context.