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Sunday, March 10, 2013

What kind of dirty bomb would Jesus carry?...the second amendment, by definition...a good reason not to mock a bald prophet.




I recently read an editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette entitled “What Gun Would Jesus Carry.”  I wonder why Jesus would need to carry firearms at all. His father is the Alpha and the Omega, the creator and destroyer of world, Superman on bath salts. One mighty swipe of his palm and there’d be an asteroid belt between Venus and Mars. And you think Jesus needs to pack heat under his robe? But you’ve got to give god credit. Sure, he massacred well over 2 million people within the timespan of the New Testament alone: He delivered she-bears to shred children who mocked the bald prophet Elisha, slaughtered nursing children in an exhibit of holy muscle flexing and, oh yeah, drowned the whole world. (funny how the Bible addicts tout the flood story's hero, but never consider the piles of children's corpses on the mountains or the pregnant women who drowned in their own bedroom) I have read the Old Testament, albeit as a young teenager, and God is clearly the most bloodthirsty character in all of literature. Despite all his vicious rampages and murderous weekend benders, you won’t find his fingerprints on any firearms. Of course, he’d never clear a background check with a rap sheet that would make Emperor Nero seem a criminal worthy of 50 Adopt-A-Highway service hours as a debt to society. I assume Jesus wouldn’t have been a gun junkie either.

The founding fathers weren’t two amendments deep into the Constitution of the United States of America without mentioning weapons. The second amendment reads: “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.” (Too bad the amendment didn't state  "to keep bear arms". THAT would change the debate!) Adjusted for the circumstances at the time, this amendment could've been more specific: “The right to keep a muzzle-loader under your mattress in case a Red Coat seeks quarters in your home.” Whether or not the old white guys in powdered wigs—slave owners who yearned for freedom—meant that any American can own and/or use any weapon for any reason at any moment in history is ambiguous. Modern society is left to interpret those few nebulous words to regulate public well-being.

I’m left to assume that anyone can own and employ a weapon of any kind, then or now. Seems reckless but it’s right there on the crinkled brown scroll. Go to the National Archives look it up.

Disregarding all the sport and romanticism surrounding a gun, what’s left is a simple machine designed to kill a human. That’s all a gun is—a made-for-TV device capable of puncturing a vital organ and rendering lifeless a disagreeable person. “It stiches, it mends, it discharges a projectile that shreds a human brain like a weed thrasher colliding with a jelly mold.” Sure, people enjoy guns for peripheral purposes: For shooting cans or clay pigeons, for collecting and displaying as a hobby or salute to history, or for the unbridled euphoria of cradling one in the palm and basking in a state of godlike authority that swells in the crotch and screams “I could kill any one of you crooked fools at any second if I wanted to.” 

However, any activity involving a gun that doesn’t produce a bullet-riddled corpse simply means that the gun did not achieve, or was not used for, its sole purpose. Although an unloaded gun can pose as a momentary deterrent, an unloaded gun essentially is a glorified paperweight. A gun was built to be fired. Any other activity in which a gun is engaged, such as being fired at a hay bale or being collected for amusement, is merely a side-effect, or happy accident, of the gun’s design as a full-fledged killing machine. A diffused hollowed-out nuclear bomb filled with soil and laid in the front yard might make a charming flower bed, but it was still designed to level a city.

Personally, I don’t have any issues with guns themselves. They make cool “bang” noises, look shiny and slick, and kill assholes. In-and-of themselves, they’re pretty rad. If you like to head to the firing range and unload on an inanimate target after a week of drudgery in the office, go to town. Releasing pent-up aggression in such a fashion is probably quite healthy.

What really stirs my crock pot are people who fuss and moan whenever the issue of gun control makes headlines. Fussin' and moanin' takes too many forms in the technology age: Facebook status updates, tweets and twats (past form of tweet), personal bogs, etc. And any knucklehead with a computer or iPhone can engage in the conversation; just read the glut of rabble rousing twats and updates since the Sandy Hook incident. Valliant defenders of the Republic accuse the federal government of encroaching on their civil liberties because they’re afraid Uncle Sam might kick down their front door and steal the AK-47 from the junk drawer in the credenza. Relax. Uncle Sam might be a crook, but only because his actions are motivated by big oil and the banks. Forget the stupid AK.

Those engaged in the gun control conversation too often swap “to keep and bear arms” with “own guns.” But guns are but one weapon in a sprawling galaxy of weapons. Whoever defends the Second Amendment needs to defend the words at that are written, not interpretations or asterisks. The words “arms” is not a synonym for guns solely. Therefore, the Constitution of the United States allows me to own and employ a hydrogen bomb. Sounds ridiculous, but where do you draw the line, and who draws it?

Card-carrying NRA members, gun junkies, and other assorted Rambo-types believe they know exactly where the line is drawn. Apparently, the Constitution’s writers whispered to them a decoded message.

But for me, if one fella' can own a semi-automatic rifle than another fella’ can own an Apache attack chopper. You want an Armalite AR-10 R2? Okay, I want a ballistic missile system. If Jack can keep a Remington R-s in his gun cabinet, Lucy can keep a nuclear submarine in her swimming pool.  And don’t complaint if the Muslim Brotherhood is building a dirty bomb in their tree house, or the Neo Nazis are hoarding Molotov cocktails for the next town hall meeting—those are simply groups of free citizens exercising their unalienable right to keep arms. God forbid if they bear them.

Speaking of god, if he draws the line it’ll be straight through a jugular vein.

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