I'm in Omaha for Olympic Trials, so I don't really have time to say much about the recent flood of gun law tragedies.
(In case you don't know, the Supreme Court overturned a DC handgun ban last week and Georgia just loosened their gun laws as well.)
Now I'm no legal scholar. Even though I find the arguments around the logic of the second amendment--the difference between the prefatory and operative clauses--compelling, I am unable to make a complicated argument against (or for) gun laws. All I can rely on is some hardcore midwestern COMMON FREAKING SENSE.
Let me just say this: if the forest is on fire, do you cut down the rest of the trees so they don't get burned???? People are so afraid of getting attacked, so the brilliant American psyche demands MORE guns!!
I mean is it honestly worth arming the whole gosh darn country so that the millions of pussified (to take a Carlin term) guys with penis problems can "defend" themselves by having big shiny guns around? Oooo look at my steel, my burning "piece" is "hot" and if you don't watch out I might have to "cap one in your ass." HELLOOOOO!!!!
I wish real "manliness" still existed.
Yeah I'm using a cliche, deal with it. I'm saying that the whole self-defense BS is exactly that: horsecrap. Horsecrap horsecrap horsecrap. You'll have to bring a more substantive argument to this guy's table.
Here's a link to my post-Virginia Tech shooting post. Although you can tell I was a bit emotional, I expressed my rather idealistic points against gun ownership well enough (and there's a really interesting comment thread as well). After this short excerpt from that post I'll just leave all this gun crap alone...for now:
Now let’s put this together. What happens when someone without practical reasoning capability has access to guns? Well, he might only use them for self-preservation, hunting, or simply to hang around the house in some kind of shrine to the second amendment. But he also might use them in an impractical way, like say, shoot up a post-office, a McDonald’s, a café, or a school.
Somebody has to explain to me how someone’s right to recreationally or defensively own arms is worth the risk of a Virginia Tech type shooting. Somebody has to show me that it balances out--that the joy and power derived from owning a gun can equal or outweigh the economic, personal, national, and international implications of shooting sprees. . Because it’s completely obvious to me that it doesn’t...
The image is from here.
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