After I read this news item about slingshots instead of guns, I had to comment.
For those who are too lazy to click on the link, the basic concept is that, while an investigation into corruption continues, the Tijuana cops have replaced all their guns with slingshots.
As a big anti-gun nut, I am now paying attention to this story. If it works, if cops can deter crime with a sling-shot and a ball bearing, I vote that we make guns illegal to manufacture or import. Eliminate the 2nd Amendment, as it was written before electricity made public safety a million times more safe.
Photo courtesy of Daniel James under Creative Commons license.
The Gift
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[Christmas, 1965 or thereabout]
The boy was very young; perhaps 7 or 8 years old. He loved everything about
Christmas - the lights, the music, Santa ...
9 months ago
2 Comments:
Stu:
We're pretty good internet buddies, so I don't really want to start a fight. I can't let this pass, though.
Eliminate the 2nd Amendment?
Perhaps you don't realize the intent of the amendment. It concerns the ability of the citizens of the United States to wage war against their own government, should the need arise.
Eliminate the 2nd Amendment, eliminating the right of the citizenry to arm themselves in whichever way they choose, and you fairly much guarantee the success of any totalitarian state, including the one we seem to be inching closer to with every pronouncement from the Bush Assministration.
Furthermore, guns are not inherently evil, Stu. They are tools. Nothing can happen with a gun unless a human interacts with it. They are the best way for those with less strength to battle the arrogant and evil with greater strength. For instance, if you arm every woman in America, you'll see the incidence of rape decline precipitously.
I've never owned a gun, nor do I belong to any organizations such as the NRA or Gun Owners of America. I've never even so much as fired a gun, except for water pistols. However, I damn sure want availability to them if a need arises.
Just my two cents, my friend. Feel free to fire back, pardon the expression :-)
Sully,
First, absolutely, we're buds, so I'm totally cool with disagreement. Happens all the time, all over the world.
Second, let me be more clear. Not just eliminate the 2nd Amendment, but melt all guns. In other words, only arm soldiers when they are on foreign soil, and keep a serious stash locked up in case of an improbable invasion.
Third, yeah, I hear your argument about Totalitarianism. And ten years ago, if I would have walked into a discussion on eliminating the 2nd Amendment, while I would have given my anti-gun intro, would have brought up this exact same point.
However, I respond with two items today, ten years later:
One, I see now that Totalitarianism will never be an issue for us, as our governmental process has too many participants and too many observers. Even a wacky coup idea would die a quick death, because the coup participants couldn't keep everything secret long enough for it to really work. Even if you could get the top brass to participate in a totalitarian fantasy, you couldn't get the troops to go along. They'd lay down their arms, rather than take the lives of other Americans, especially with no clear objective. The Civil War, which was fought over serious, grown-up issues (Slavery, Economics, States' Rights), showed that if we didn't have guns on American soil, lives would have been spared. We might have ended up as two countries after an extended, bare-handed brawl, but the death toll would have been far less than 620,000.
Two, I have kids. I want to see them grow up, doing whatever it is that they do. And out here in Los Angeles, they shoot each other, kids shoot each other, cops shoot at unarmed citizens, over NOTHING. Let's melt the guns, give the cops slingshots and metal bearings, and see what happens.
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