Some arguments should end. All the issues over horses and buggy whips vanished from our city council meetings when the automobile came along. The inventor who guaranteed his new carbon paper was better than anybody else's fell silent when Xerox came along. Doctors no longer argue over when leeches should be applied to very sick patients.
The argument that must end immediately is the one over gun control. Forget that gun control doesn't work and crime – especially the crime of rape – goes down where citizens may legally carry concealed weapons. All arguments over gun control lost their relevance around the middle of last week. As eyes open and brains quicken and egos quit hurting, the realization must set in that, after ISIS declared war on all non-Muslims worldwide last week, "gun-control" has joined the buggy whip, carbon paper and the medicinal leech in the dustbin of obsolescence.
I call upon all advocates of gun control to banish all feelings that they've lost an argument here. They should feel no shame or humiliation. The very ground shifted under their feet when ISIS proclaimed, "Kill the infidel. If you can't find a bullet, get a rock and bash his head in …" and so on.
There immediately followed the murder of a Canadian soldier by a driver recently converted to Islam. The next day another recent convert to Islam walked into the wide-open Parliament area in Ottawa, Canada, and, but for the heroic and sharp-shooting sergeant-at-arms, might have wiped out half the government instead of a single victim. The next day an Islamic hatchet-swinger attacked a group of New York policemen. And the next day in Sacramento …!
I remember the hilarity in the fifth grade when German measles hit. No student wanted to admit he had German measles. He insisted as long as possible that he just developed a lot of unconnected red splotches all over his body. And, "Dammit, even if it is measles, it ain't German measles!" This will happen here, instead of what should happen.
What should happen is, for example, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should find a microphone and declare that the millions of dollars he's donated to the cause of stronger gun control will now go to training boys and girls at the age of 9 in the safe use of firearms and target practice. What should happen is what happened on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. In the morning America was deeply divided, with the isolationist faction in the lead. Americans wanted no part of any more war. Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and there were no more isolationists. There were instead millions of Americans lining up around the block to enlist in the armed forces. In Congress there was only one vote against declaring war on Japan, Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin of Montana.
ISIS has pushed us into the "new normal"; now perceptions must change! Look at that nice, normal chap over there. What do you suppose he's carrying? A little money, for sure; a wallet and ID; probably a pen, maybe a nail-clipper. In the old smoking days he'd likely have a lighter or a match, and he'd also have the time of day. Would he have a concealed firearm? No way! If you were being attacked, the chances of a "Better Samaritan" springing to your rescue were less-than-zero. (A "Better Samaritan" is a "Good Samaritan" with a firearm.)
Children are trained to brush teeth, stand up straight and eat leafy-green vegetables. They should immediately also be trained in the defensive use of firearms in an anguished, instant national campaign to establish the perception that the nice-normal chap, the book-toting schoolgirl, the balding executive and the doting grandmother will all be armed and able to defend their little corner of civilization when the barbarian strikes.
The media simply will not report stories where the "ordinary person" with a firearm defends the victim, downs the attacker, puts the Jihadis to flight, saves the day. If Moses read American media there'd be another Commandment! In one not-at-all unusual case, when a school shooting was in progress and everybody was screaming and hiding, a faculty member ran to his pickup truck, parked over a thousand feet away to conform to law, got his handgun, ran back to the school and got the drop on the murderer, who dropped his gun and surrendered. The New York Times didn't mention the "Better Samaritan," but reported that the carnage stopped when the gunman was "persuaded" to put his firearm down!
After this much hate against firearms, it should be noted that firearms are great, when they're in the right hands!
"Packing heat," or being self-defense-competent, should be as normal as brushing teeth. In the age of ISIS, having the means to defend yourself and your loved ones should be as natural as it was for old Justice Hugo Black to never leave home without his copy of the Constitution.
One day New York columnist Sidney Zion happened to spot an obviously troubled Justice Black on the steps of the Supreme Court, patting his pockets and looking through his briefcase. Sidney said, "Justice Black, you're obviously having a problem. May I help you?"
"I seem to have left home without my Constitution today," said Justice Black.
"May I borrow yours?"
Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact [email protected].
|