Have you ever heard something so stupid that you wanted to punch a Wookiee in the dick? I just finished listening to a man rant at me about how gun control is just “the government’s way of keeping the public from rising up against it.” Yes, Stay Puff Marshmallow Man-look alike. The government, with its aircraft carriers, and unmanned drones, and nukes, and Defcon-5, is terrified of you and your cute stash of popguns. It amazes me how many people I meet who won’t vote but stockpile weapons just to “keep the government in line.” I believe these are the same guys who achieved their first hard-on while playing Duck Hunt.
Now, I believe that a person has the right to arm her- or himself. Totally. If you feel too terrified to walk out your front door without a loaded firearm, or you simply can’t fall asleep at night without the soothing reassurance of a Desert Eagle resting beneath your head, then by all means, you are entitled to own a weapon. Whatever helps. However, I don’t particularly grasp the notion of owning piles of automatic weapons. Unless you’re a Hindu god, you only have one or two arms. How many weapons are you going to fire at once? If the first five magazines’ worth of bullets bounced off your home invader, what makes you think the next few are going to make a difference? At what point are you spending more for ammo than you did for the television set that you’re so feverishly protecting. Why do you believe that you need armor-piercing rounds? Why do the deer in your neighborhood have bullet-proof vests? Who’s selling those to them? How are the deer paying for the vests? Why didn’t Bambi’s mother have one?
What concern me most are the people who speak with a gleam in their eyes about the day some “poor bastard breaks into my house.” You shouldn’t look forward to the day that you take another person’s life. The law that states that you can’t shoot someone if they’re fleeing your property is not bullshit. Stop pouting about it. Killing a person is the last resort in a him-or-you situation. Not, “He’s got my TV.” It’s just a TV. If we can’t march into the Senate building and arrest the greatest criminals of our country, then we can’t kill a poor person over a television set.
I don’t own a gun. When I tell people this, they sometimes ask, “How will you protect your family and loved ones?” They have a point. If someone breaks into my house, how better to protect my family and belongs than for me to recklessly spray the living room with ammunition? Yes, I know some people can just aim, squeeze, and drop the intruder. I am not one of those people. I will blast apart everyone and everything in my house but the intruder. Of course, the joke would still fall upon the thief. How much cash can he get for a bullet hole-infested, plasma screen?
On a final note, I want to address the question that always follows a workplace- or school shooting. Everyone always asks, “What if someone else had had a gun? Wouldn’t that person have been able to take down the shooter?” Maybe. More likely, this would happen:
Okay. You and I are at, let’s say . . . a grocery store. You’re in aisle three, squeezing mangos or something. I’m in aisle seven, getting shot down (pardon the pun) by some hot redhead. Somewhere in the store, some idiot slips a firearm from a holster. We both hear the shots and screaming. You draw your weapon. I draw mine. We both turn the corner and see each other, each of us holding a weapon. Doesn’t take a genius to determine what will happen next. But I’m going to ask a genius, anyways.
Mister Stephen Hawking, what will happen next? Blink once, if we’re going to save the day. Blink twice, if we’re probably just going to shoot each other.
<blink> <blink> Well. That’s not good.
Even if that doesn’t happen, even if you draw your weapon and hunt for the gunman unhindered, what happens when the police arrive and see you clutching your weapon? And while the cops are punching more holes in you than are in the plot of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the real gunman is probably slipping out the backdoor while munching from a stolen package of Goldfish crackers.
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