Taking A Stab At Our
Infatuation With Guns
By Molly Ivins[1] March 15, 1993
Creators Syndicate, Inc.
AUSTIN, Texas - Guns. Everywhere guns.
Let
me start this discussion by pointing out that I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife.
Consider the merits of the knife.
In
the first place, you have catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general
substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into
a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are
seldom killed while cleaning their knives.
As
a civil libertarian, I of course support the Second Amendment. And I believe it
means exactly what it says: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to
the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed." Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a
well-regulated militia.
I
am intrigued by the arguments of those who claim to follow the judicial
doctrine of original intent. How do they know it was the dearest wish of Thomas
Jefferson's heart that teen-age drug dealers should cruise the cities of this
nation perforating their fellow citizens with assault rifles? Channelling?
There
is more hooey spread about the Second Amendment. It says quite clearly that guns
are for those who form part of a well-regulated militia, i.e., the armed forces
including the National Guard. The reasons for keeping them away from everyone
else get clearer by the day.
The
comparison most often used is that of the automobile, another lethal object
that is regularly used to wreak great carnage. Obviously, this society is full
of people who haven't got enough common sense to use an automobile properly.
But we haven't outlawed cars yet.
We
do, however, license them and their owners, restrict their use to presumably
sane and sober adults and keep track of who sells them to whom. At a minimum,
we should do the same with guns.
In
truth, there is no rational argument for guns in this society. This is no
longer a frontier nation in which people hunt their own food. It is a crowded,
overwhelmingly urban country in which letting people have access to guns is a
continuing disaster. Those who want guns - whether for target shooting, hunting
or potting rattlesnakes (get a hoe) - should be subject to the same
restrictions placed on gun owners in England - a nation in which liberty has
survived nicely without an armed populace.
The
argument that "guns don't kill people" is patent nonsense. Anyone who
has ever worked in a cop shop knows how many family arguments end in murder
because there was a gun in the house. Did the gun kill someone? No. But if
there had been no gun, no one would have died. At least not without a good
footrace first. Guns do kill. Unlike cars, that is all they do.
Michael
Crichton makes an interesting argument about technology in his thriller
"Jurassic Park." He points out that power without discipline is
making this society into a wreckage. By the time someone who studies the
martial arts becomes a master - literally able to kill with bare hands - that
person has also undergone years of training and discipline. But any fool can
pick up a gun and kill with it.
"A
well-regulated militia" surely implies both long training and long
discipline. That is the least, the very least, that should be required of those
who are permitted to have guns, because a gun is literally the power to kill.
For years, I used to enjoy taunting my gun-nut friends about their
psycho-sexual hang-ups - always in a spirit of good cheer, you understand. But
letting the noisy minority in the National Rifle Association force us to allow
this carnage to continue is just plain insane.
I
do think gun nuts have a power hang-up. I don't know what is missing in their
psyches that they need to feel they have to have the power to kill. But no sane
society would allow this to continue.
Ban
the damn things. Ban them all.
You
want protection? Get a dog.
[1]
Molly Ivins, my all-time favorite columnist, died of cancer in 2007. For many
years, she wrote her columns for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and was widely
syndicated. She wrote this essay almost 20 years ago. It was true then. It is
true today.
