Sunday, March 02, 2008

Cold Dead Hands

A very good friend of mine just gave his bride a small pistol as a wedding gift. She gave him a big sword. The firearm was a Walther something. I don't know much about guns. I don't need to. I live in a safe little bubble free of confrontation and securely removed from the bad side of town. I don't have to worry much about crime in my neighborhood. The buses don't run out here. You have to have the means to afford a house and a car to live here. That puts a mountain range that only elephants can cross between me and the Mongol hordes of tweakers and welfare cheats looking to kick in my front door and grab my wife's jewelery box. It's simply too cold and far to walk and by the time someones lifestyle grinds them into petty thievery they've lost the car if they even had one to begin with.

So I live out here un-armed with enough food to last 3 weeks and water to last 3 days if something goes wrong. I have enough gas on hand to drive a week of my regular habits. I have enough oil to last 3 weeks but the system depends on electricity to run. If there's a blackout I have what I need to turn the lawnmower into a crude enough generator to keep the HVAC system going. I have enough propane to heat one room for one week. I'm surrounded by trees and swamps. I could probably keep myself, Lisa and her grandfather alive 10 days if society collapsed outright. That's if the lower class doesn't get hungry enough to walk over here. I have too many sliding glass doors and low windows to protect this place from even a slow moving zombie attack.

In any event, if I had a gun or even a dozen, I wouldn't be able to defend my Bastile from an army of similarly armed and hungry neighbors. A gun would be worth having to defend myself from one determined criminal but not swarms. And a gun certainly wouldn't protect my family from this. But they are fun. They make a big noise and you see holes open up in a target or cans fall over. They make a big difference to those who live closer to the criminal element or have to deliver pizza or staff the grave yard shift at 7-11. I'm very in favor of letting 'the help' have guns.

I often wonder if it would be wise to arm teachers since the epidemic of school shootings is such a great meme right now. I wouldn't have a problem taking the training and openly carrying a side arm. America has a longstanding tradition with offering the duties of a sheriffs deputy to the local citizenry when needed. I see no real difference between myself and our school resource officer who carries her sidearm into school every day. However if you ask me, if I would draw my weapon on a child and fire my answer would be where his weapon was pointed would make all the difference in the world. If it was pointed at me, probably not. I would talk. If the weapon was pointed at another child than yes I think I would fire and feel remorse afterwards.




A lot of people see this picture and think that guy has balls. I see the compassion in that first tank drivers heart. I know my friends in the military are smart and decent people. I don't think they'd turn fire on me if ordered. Not even if their commander in chief was a total douchebag. That tank driver didn't want to harm his countryman. It's a different story when your enemy are foreigners.

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Email me - dean.rules@yahoo.com