Since the January 8th shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, in which 13 others were wounded and six killed, including 9 year old Christina Taylor Green who was born on September 11, 2001, there has been a renewed public debate about “gun control.”
If you have ever masturbated or been hosted to an orgasm with a living or even an artificial phallus, or you have experienced the deep satisfaction of a nitrocellulose-warmed and jolted Muladhara chakra, as described by John Lennon in his primal scream song Happiness Is A Warm Gun, then you know that the gun control debate is impervious to logical assault.
Nevertheless, I wish to make a suggestion.
First, let me say that I have no problem with anyone owning all the guns they want, so long as they don’t actually kill anyone (or anything) with them. Actually, that is too stringent; I don’t mind if a gunslinger absolutely hellbent on killing someone kills themselves — and no one else. This is a clean solution to the problem of finding a target for the killing urge and simultaneously safeguarding the public. I admit the result may not be entirely satisfactory to the family members of the killer, but I think it the best compromise short of avoiding a killing entirely.
Some have suggested that it is remotely possible that on rare occasions a shooting death would be a humanitarian blessing. This type of thinking usually seeps out of militaristic and war-games fantasies. However, I think such possibilities are so rare in civilian life that we can discount giving this excuse further consideration.
Proponents of unrestricted gun ownership and use usually base their argument on the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and the further argument of applying a “strict interpretation” to the Constitution: “following the intent of the framers,” or the intent of “the founding fathers,” without allowing for any re-interpretations — “deviations” they would say — as informed by later historical developments and evolved social thought.
Very well. My suggestion is the following. Allow for the unrestricted ownership and use of guns and ammunition as they existed in 1789, when the Constitution and its first ten amendments were written. This would conform EXACTLY to the intent of the framers. It would satisfy the 2nd Amendment freedom to “bear arms,” without allowing for any deviations from ‘strict interpretationalism’ that would excuse the weaseling in of ownership of semi-automatic and automatic guns, and anything beyond ball, shot and black powder for ammunition: no full metal jackets, no nitrocellulose propellent, no late 19th century cordite-filled cartridges, not even percussion caps (from about 1830). Just flintlocks.
If it was good enough for the Founding Fathers, it’s good enough for you.
MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. is a retired physicist (nuclear bombs), his e-mail is mangogarcia@att.net