A Bold Proposal

Or at least that’s what Stanley Crouch calls it when he repeats the same anti-gun/NRA shtick that we’ve all heard so many times before. Of course, with the way this particular editorial starts off, I initially thought it was going to at least be a little humorous and different.

When Jonathan Swift wrote his bitterly satirical essay, “A Modest Proposal,” in the 18th century, he suggested that the problem of the poor could be solved by simply eating the impoverished…Were Swift an American today, he might suggest that some of the meat be gathered from crime scenes and cooked before the bodies cooled off. Spoilage must be avoided. A good deal of dark meat would be available but there would be plenty of white meat as well.

When I read that at 7:30, I thought to myself “hahahahaha…oh wow”. I hadn’t had any coffee at the time, but I honestly thought this was a funny and unique way to start to address the gun control issue. It really did disappoint me when the author descended into the usual tripe.

Some of us are probably still reeling about the mother who bought her 14-year-old son an automatic weapon to add to an already dangerous stockpile of guns and explosives. Don’t forget that street gangs have murdered thousands upon thousands since 9/11. Far too many believe that power comes from the barrel of a gun. An inconvenient number are members of the National Rifle Association…

First off, the mother did not buy an “automatic weapon” for her son, she bought him a semi-automatic 9mm carbine; hardly the evil black assault rifle that the media portrays it as. And his “dangerous stockpile of guns and explosives” consisted of some black powder bombs and a bunch of BB guns. Factual inaccuracies are bad enough, but of course he then gets into how “the NRA is enabling murder” or something silly.

But the power of the NRA lobby has buckled the knees of most in Washington and has zipped the lips of the presidential candidates, all of whom dread being targeted by those who sometimes seem to want to send the country back to those good old days of gunfights like the one at the O.K. Corral. There, might and right seemed to become one as the ground was covered with dead bodies and the air was filled with gun smoke.

You know, if you actually talked to an NRA member, you’d find out that they are as opposed or if not more opposed to gun crime than you are. The characterization of wanting to go back to the “OK Corral days” is patently false – we do not want shootouts, nor do we go around looking to kill folk. It is also worthwhile to note that the “Wild Wild West” was not nearly as wild as most people would have you believe, but that is a post for another time.

The NRA always couches its argument as a defense of our American rights as opposed to governmental control. But it is a reason why highways are engineered as well as they can be. The driver has the right to travel as safely as possible. Citizens of America should have as much of a right to safety from gun violence as possible.

Yes, they do – but how exactly do you propose to provide for that safety? The young gang members that you mentioned as having killed “thousands” since 9/11 will surely not abide by restrictions against violence or illegal firearms ownership; can you promise 24/7 police protection for all citizens?

I know that I’m asking a rhetorical question; however I have quite simply grown weary of the same tired assertions being made without any sort of research or factual backing. It is the same argument, the same lies over, and over, and over again. The only difference is that it appears to be reaching an almost hysterical level – as if the advocates of gun control realize that they are losing, and can only screech the same lines repeatedly in the hopes that someone, anyone, will be duped by it.

It’s almost sad.

6 Comments

  1. Anyone who mentions the OK Corral needs to go look up the research into it by modern historians in Arizona. The Earps were gangsters with badges (and by this time their reputation had spread sufficiently that not many of them could still get a badge). They used a gun-control law as an excuse to catch some of their opposition off-guard and shoot them down.

  2. Crouch is yet another minority member who cannot come to grips with the fact that his people are killing one another off in record numbers, so instead of vilifying THEM and apologizing to the rest of mankind who must share the same planet with these monsters, he blames law abiding folks who’ve never participated in a drive-by and never will. Because we’re a lot easier to disarm or so he believes.

  3. Picking a nit here. Loose and lose. When you lose it means you lost. When you loose, it means you let go or untighten.

    Ok, smack me down, I earned it.

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