WMDS Don't Kill, People Do!

I've never hunted. I've never understood the appeal in killing something. I haven't eaten the flesh of a mammal in more than twenty years. I don't enjoy loud noises unless they have a rhythm to which I can dance. I admit it: I've never understood the fascination with guns.

Growing up, I had friends and classmates whose parents hunted. For some of them, that annual take provided a significant portion of the family's winter meat. I always had a grudging respect for that. I have a libertarian streak, which is one of the reasons I love the potential of solar power. Anything that can help people stay off-grid is worthy of consideration. If hunting enables some people to save money and stay out of supermarkets, I support their right to do so. Handguns are a different matter. I doubt there are many people who hunt with handguns.

I was more than a little disturbed, these past few days, by some of the blog diaries by gun lovers. What I perceived as callousness astonished me. In the face of overwhelming horror and heartbreak, these gun lovers felt the need to assert their presumed right to own guns, to declare their passion for their guns, and even to quantify that passion by "bragging" about how many guns they own. It overwhelmed me. I would have called some of them repugnant, unconscionable, insenstive fuckwits; but I didn't want to insult repugnant, unconscionable, insensitive fuckwits. Then, I couldn't help it. Against my will and judgment, all this talk about guns got me hot and bothered. I realized that guns are sexy. I realized that gun owners are sexy. I want to be sexy. I am now on board with the gun fetish. I'm ready to take up the banner and march forth in the cause of obsessive gun ownership. I am now a gun lover. Please excuse me if it takes me a while to get the hang of it.

The first thing we gun lovers must do is to continue to declare, against all but the most recent judicial rulings, that the Second Amendment protects our rights, as individuals, to own guns. Now, we must grant that the courts have, until recently, consistently disagreed with our interpretation of the Bill of Rights, but that disagreement no longer matters. In the 2001 United States v. Emerson ruling, Reagan appointee, Judge William Lockhart Garwood, and G.H.W. Bush appointee, Judge Harold R. DeMoss, Jr. provided the first Federal ruling that the Second Amendment does actually guarantee an individual right to bear arms! Unfortunately, Clinton appointee, Judge Robert Manley Parker had to muddy the waters by declaring that the majority opinion was a non-binding dicta. Fortunately, for our side, in March of this year, the D.C. Circuit, in Parker v. District of Columbia also ruled that there is a Constitutionally guaranteed individual right to bear arms! In this case, we gun lovers have Reagan appointee, Judge Laurence H. Silberman and W appointee, Judge Thomas B. Griffith, to thank. In fact, I'm so thrilled that the tide of judicial opinion is finally, after two centuries, turning our way, that I intend to write letters to both Presidents Bush, and to the Reagan Library, thanking them for finally, after two centuries, appointing judges who really understand the Constitution! And with the present president having done his best to pack the courts with sympathetic judges, we gun lovers can expect even more favorable rulings, in the future! Thanks, W!

The other great argument in our favor is that our ability to arm ourselves is a guarantee that we can defend ourselves against tyrannical government. I don't know about you, but when those black helicopters come, I intend to be ready! In fact, this is where I think we gun lovers have fallen down on the job, and neglected the vigilance by which we have thus far prevented tyranny! The simple fact is that weapons technology has greatly advanced since the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Our critics rightly point out that in the late Eighteenth Century, muskets were often adequate firepower. How things have changed!

Given that governments now have arsenals undreamed of by the Founders, it is only right that we lovers of liberty should have commensurate arsenals with which to protect ourselves! That is why I now propose that we haven't been broad enough in our demand for our Constitutional rights! We have been shortchanging ourselves! We have actually been undermining our own liberty! We need to protect our right to bear all manner of arms, from high tech weapons to WMDS! If governments have them, we need them to protect ourselves from said governments! And given that I am now on board with the theory that packing heat is a deterrent to crime, and that people knowing we are packing heat is a deterrent to crime, I also propose that we take this cause global!

The more countries that have advanced weapons and WMDS, the more secure we will all be from one another! That is why I believe the National Rifle Association to be hopelessly outdated. Therefore, in the causes of self-protection and individual liberty, I now propose that we establish the International WMD Association! After all, WMDS don't kill, people do!