Posted on 10/22/2001 10:17:40 AM PDT by tdadams
Where we live, hunting is common. When our two school-age children are invited to a friend's home, we tell those parents that because a relative of ours was injured in a gun accident, we do not allow our children to be in homes where guns are kept and then ask if they keep guns. We are polite, but play on their sympathy. Our problem: the story is a lie -- no such relative, no such accident. But asking straight out is not as likely to net us the truth. Are we justified in lying? Anonymous, Ohio
A lie may be justified when it is the only way to acquire vital information and when the civic good it achieves outweighs the social damage it inflicts -- undercover reporters come to mind, as do wartime spies -- but yours is not such a case. For starters, you have not yet exhausted honesty. Where hunting is popular, its practitioners are unembarrassed by their zooicidal urges and so have no reason to be coy about gun ownership. It is only your conjecture that direct questioning (of those parents or their savvy kids) would be ineffectual. And even if it were, you could still go the indirect but honest route of asking friends and neighbors, who often know a lot about the rec room or gun rack next door.
What's more, your small falsehood undermines the legitimacy of ordinary parental concern by implying that only families that have suffered personally from gun violence -- an aunt harmed in a bazooka mishap, a cousin injured while being shot out of a cannon -- have the right to worry about such things. That is, you make gun safety either a quirk or the compulsion of one ill-fated family rather than the obligation of every gun owner (and every citizen, in fact).
There are times when ethical action requires deceit, but not often. Prevarication erodes the trust essential for the functioning of society, much as counterfeit $20's undermine a nation's currency. Samuel Johnson, the great 18th-century moralist, took a hard line on such behavior: ''There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.''
Prey he presumably seeks with gun in hand. That's one cave you would not want your kids to visit.
And not only is lying OK in this war against guns, but the typically civic-rights-minded NY Times seems to endorse snooping on your neighbors by inquiring of their friends and other neighbors. Real neighborly!
On this topic, in case anybody has been avoiding his friendly neighborhood gun store lately in case the prices are up and the stocks are down, fear not. People are trading in interesting things to buy up to better guns and the shelves were full at my local. I bought a nice cheap little Makarov in solidarity with our Russian comrades.
Not all liberals wear their disloyalty to the Constitution on their sleeve. Some of them make an effort to 'pass' as normal, decent people by minimizing discussion of things political.
Sure, you'll eventually discover their criminality, but I'm of the mind that sooner is a lot better than later in such cases.
The gun question allows you to reply: "Oh, so you're involved in treason eh? Tell you what sport, we don't hobnob with traitors in this household. You need to keep yourself and your kid(s) off my property from now on."
Cut the bastards off. Just like that. No appeal, no compromise, no accommodation.
A relative of mine was injured in a cooking accident, so I won't allow my children to be in homes where stoves or knives are kept.
Don't even get me started on those dangerous automobiles...
Some folks just don't make it through OUR screening...
After evening services a month ago, our pastor brought out a WWII Japanese rifle. Looked to be 6.0 or 6.5mm; cocked on closing.
Nobody at our church doesn't have guns in the house; at least none that have owned up to it.
Of course it's not true, but how do you deal with sensitive people whom you can never believe?
As a matter of fact, I keep a number of firearms in my house. Some are kept in the gun cabinet, and I keep one gun in a bedside drawer for self-defense. Since you asked, can I assume your child will be going through all my personal effects? Did you teach him/her to stay out of places where they don't belong? More importantly, are you saying you can't trust your child to leave MY gun where they found it? Maybe your child doesn't belong in my home after all.
It's darned hard to shoot those critters at long range without a chance of hitting the bars!
There is one thing that you have seemed to overlook in regards to your solution, and that is:......It actually makes sense. And so it will be a totally alien concept to those suffering from the mental disorder of liberalism.
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