Posted on 03/23/2009 3:51:11 PM PDT by holymoly
I want to take your guns away from you.
Yeah, you heard me right. I want to take guns away. All the guns. Not just the automatic weapons that can mow down dozens of students at a time, such as the ones used in the Virginia Tech shootings. Not just your 15th and 16th gun in your massive collection. I want them all. The little guns, such as the one that was used in “Back to the Future III” to kill Doc Brown. The buckshot guns, such as the one former Vice President Dick Cheney used to shoot his friend in the face. And the machine guns, such as the one used in Rambo to liquefy those Burmese soldiers. We can put them all in a pile and burn them, just like the books were burned in Fahrenheit 451.
Oh, and I want all the guns taken out of video games too. No video game violence. Only ponies and flowers and rainbows. And Nintendo.
In case you haven’t caught on, I’m being sarcastic. I am not particularly interested in overthrowing the Second Amendment of the Constitution; I have smaller, less deeply ingrained pieces of legislation I’m working on undermining first, for example, Proposition 8. But I bet if you’re a gun zealot, that intro got your attention. Judging by the amount of angry comments and letters to the editor generated by one of our columnist’s pro-gun control column last month — the angry responses are still trickling in even though it’s been weeks, and some of them were confusingly, inexplicably racist — then my intro probably caused you to have a brain aneurism and apoplexy at the same time. Which is a decidedly satisfying mental picture. Then, at least, you won’t be around long enough to try and come shoot me to prove it’s not guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people.
The thing is, the angry comments and letters responding to Ashlie Rodriguez’s “Increased gun control is a welcome change,” if you read them — most of which you can’t because I won’t dignify such insanity with publication, though there were a few lucid ones that made the cut last week — all would be much more reasonable if they were in response to my little Stephen-Colbert-channeling-Ann-Coulter piece up there. I don’t even remember how many times I read, “From my cold dead hands!” I started to suspect that the letters’ authors thought they really were Moses.
Because there’s one problem. Rodriguez wasn’t trying to take your guns from your cold, dead hands. In fact, she wasn’t suggesting anyone take your guns at all. She was supporting things such as background checks, waiting periods, gun registration and licensing with possible mandatory gun safety classes. All of which, it’s true, are a huge pain in the elbow and would likely prevent some individuals from being able to acquire a gun. Which is kind of the point.
But requiring you to wait a few days, fill out some paperwork and know how to put the safety on before you’re allowed to buy a weapon of slaughter, is not the same thing as banning it. Charlton Heston’s rhetorical choices aside, no one is interested in prying your peashooter from your cadaver’s chilly digits.
Actually, it is precisely this kind of exaggerated overreaction to a non-issue that creeps the general population out. How many people are actively campaigning to ban all guns? Not just increased gun control, but ban? Even if you limit your search to pinko liberal Democrats — I can’t name any, and I supposedly am a pinko liberal Democrat.
So when gun zealots freak out and act like people suggesting reasonable restrictions are trying to desecrate our founding document … well, that freaks out the normies. We wonder why it is that you “loves, loves, loves” your guns so much. We wonder why your kill-sticks are so precious that asking you to register them, take a safety class and wait a few days after buying them is morally equivalent to taking them all away.
So please, if you’re going to argue against increased gun control, actually argue against increased gun control, instead of arguing against a ban no one is actually trying to impose. Be more honest in how you argue, instead of throwing up straw men to crucify and burn.
Then those of us who are pro-gun control won’t feel so creeped out we have to go buy an Uzi to defend ourselves from you.
—Ruthie Kelly is a journalism and women’s studies senior.
/sarcasm
BTW You can leave a comment for little Ruthie at the website, should you be so inclined. (No log in required.)
Go ahead Ruthie. Try to confiscate my guns under your ruse of “gun control.”
Doofie Kelly is just that....
stupid subject.
—Then those of us who are pro-gun control won’t feel so creeped out we have to go buy an Uzi to defend ourselves from you.
The only truthful part of her article. Gun controllers are afraid of guns. Period.
What do you expect from a college newspaper in California? The most annoying part is that taxpayers are paying for this bilge. Wait til she enters the real world, where journalism degrees go begging, the local paper is up for sale, and women’s studies get you a job as a restroom attendant in Tijuana.
Two words for Ruthie:
Molon Labe.
Ruthie Kelly is a journalism and women’s studies senior. This pretty much says all you need to know about her.
Ruthie Kelly is a journalism and women’s studies senior.
IOW “I’m an idiot”
LOL! Try looking around Washington DC.
look at the recent SCOTUS case concerning that fine district's laws.
Anything originating from something with the word “Aztec” in it sets off all my bells and whistles. No worth putting in the shredder, but I’d burn it just for the carbon.
Another dumb@ss liberal wasting tax money.
“journalism and women’s studies senior’
She better practice saying “want to supersize that?”
A pity she didn't opt for a college education.
The biggest among her several false premises is that anything short of confiscation ought to be acceptable. Surprise, Ruthie - the answer is no.
people who major in journalism or women’s studies (let alone both) shouldn’t get govt financial aid.
Let me attack Ruthie's paternalistic screed from the perspective of leftist wymen:
If Ruthie gets her way, thousands of wymen will die because of their inability to get their hands on a means of protection against violent male predators... Many of them would be black wymen. That must be Ruthie's goal. Therefore Ruthie must be a racist.
See, leftist "logic" is fun...
I wonder how this soon-to-be-telemarketer would feel if we asked for the same requirements to vote? "It's just an application and an ID check to make sure you're not a fraudulent voter."
And let's be serious, what are you supposed to do with a degree in Journalism and Women's Studies?
With Guns, we are Citizens, Without Guns, WE ARE SUBJECTS!
Hey Ruthie: Way to go outing yourself as a victim-in-waiting! Imagine the irony of some police pathologist having to pry the keyboard from your cold, dead hands because you made it clear to every rapist, murderer, or God knows what in California that you will be unarmed and therefore unlikely to be able to defend yourself. Genius. You know, you’re more likely to die under a gang member with a crowbar than by being shot by little old law-abiding, gun-owning me. But I guess that’s how phobias work.
“But requiring you to wait a few days, fill out some paperwork and know how to put the safety on before you’re allowed to buy a weapon of slaughter,”
How about a knife, Ruthie? How about a car? An axe?
“Slaughter” Ruthie, is an act that anyone can do with almost anything. But “slaughter” has nothing to do with perserving ones life and saftey and Freedom, Ruthie, which means you have demonstrated your bias against the 2nd amendment in your attempt to demonstrate your intellectual reason in this matter. Nice try, Ruthie....
It’s not banning guns that is the problem. I don’t think they will ever do that. But they can put high taxes on guns and ammo, making it nearly impossible to afford. It will have the same effect.
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