So I typed “Gun Control” in news.google.com and low and behold, I manage to find (another) anti-gun editorial.
What really makes this one amusing is that it almost exactly follows the satirical formula I laid out for writing an anti-gun editorial. Since I’m kind of a sarcastic and snarky mood, I’m just going to copy/paste the thing in here, piece by piece, and add commentary.
First off, the “article” is published in the notoriously anti-gun Huffington post; it’s so predictable that it’s almost laughable in its content. So, here we go.
I grew up in a house with guns. My Grandfather (I called him Papa) had a rifle in the closet, and I used to open the closet door, stare at it, and even once or twice reached out and touched it.
<!–
- HuffIt
–>
I never played with it. Why? Because, quietly rebellious punk that I thought was, I knew my ass would be spanked, hard, if I was caught with it.
Yes, establish your credibility with gun owners. You guys must feel an almost burning desire to start things like this. I do like the part about how your respect for your Papa’s rules prevented you from messing with his guns, that same respect did the same for my father’s guns.
I shot the gun a few times a few years later. My Dad & I took it into the desert so I could try to kill a few peaceful creatures for a college Biology project. I was supposed to stuff and mount 3 small mammals. Oddly enough, in 5th grade, I had checked a book out from the Bookmobile called, if I recall, “Practical Taxidermy”. Of course, at that age, it was a giggle, a schoolboy fascination with things gross and icky.
I have nothing mean to say here – I do wish that I had cool courses like that when I was in 5th grade. Oh, how the times have changed.
I truly had no idea how gross and icky it was until I shot the head off a desert squirrel. Seeing blood spurt, and tiny broken bits of bone was jarring. And frustrating, because the animal had to be whole for the display.
Translation: People who kill cute fuzzy animals are bad, bad people. You’re a bad person for wanting to kill cute fuzzy animals. Nevermind that the goddamn squirrels are prepping for an invasion.
I hate guns. I recognize their sad neccessity, for law enforcement, and soldiers. But I have absolutely no comprehension how a human can enjoy killing a creature and call it sport. Some of my beliefs I am willing to call personal failings. I recognize that some may legitimately enjoy professional wrestling, whereas I think it’s idiotic. But I own my feelings about guns. No one is going to change my mind.
Like I said, you’re a bad, bad man for enjoying hunting. Why? Because this guy says so. Shucks, I’m just going to turn in my rifles now. On the flip side, at least he’s honest that he’s completely closed minded on the gun issue. His willingness to admit that he’s completely unwilling to engage in honest debate is almost refreshing.
I regularly hear from folks on an email list, many of them conservatives and libertarians, that guns are lovely pieces of engineering and should be appreciated. They prattle on about various loads and calibers. I think they are certifiably insane.
So, because I like something that you don’t like, I’m crazy? That’s awesome! I’ve always believed that people who didn’t agree with me were crazy, does this mean that I can go around just telling people “sorry, you don’t hold the same opinions as me – you must be nuts!”
So, I’ll skip the next part, because the author just quotes a section of the NY Times, which is basically a combination of being glad that the NICS bill is passing coupled with bitching about the Tiahrt Amendment. But, if you couple his support of “no guns for crazies” with the fact that he thinks that everyone who wants to own a gun is crazy, well…you get the idea.
Here’s his conclusion:
All the arguments by people who want to keep guns in their houses fail even casual scrutiny to me. Statistics, while open to interpretation, show far more danger from those guns than any perceived benefit. To me, it’s a bit like any addiction: one will torture logic to support the addiction, no matter how harmful. These people just want to have guns around.
I think that’s crazy.
Completely disregarding all the statistics that talk about how many times guns have been used in self-defense; his summary point is to once again just basically say that if you want to own a gun for the sake of having the thing – you’re nuts. Because since cars kill a lot more people than guns, anyone who wants to a car that isn’t made of Nerf is crazy.
We’re all crazy.
Like I said though, at least this guy is honest in his contempt for gun owners. Basically, the article written above is a wank-piece to show how cool some guy is to his liberal friends. It’s basically the literary equivalent of showing off for your peers. “Look at me, I can do Random Action X that makes me edgy and awesome!”
So boring.
