Gunning

There's another one of those 2nd amendment/pry my gun from my cold dead hands posts going around the internet. (I don't understand the purpose since apparently gun owners/buyers have more rights than every woman in the U.S. and no one is threatening to curtail them.) But hey, the gun owners tend to be a jumpy bunch, so we'll humor them. This particular post includes 16 bullet (haha) points about guns that they refer to as undeniable truths. I am about to deny them.

1. “Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.”

This quote is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who for unknown reasons, Tea Party "Patriots" love. If they actually looked at his life and achievements from an unbiased historical perspective, they might not be so impressed. Also, he never said this. Ever.

2. “Those who trade liberty for security have neither.”

 This attribution is to Benjamin Franklin who ought to be even more reviled than Jefferson by today's modern conservatives. The actual quote, which may or may not have been Franklin's is more accurately stated as, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." He was not talking about guns. Nothing in his writings or his life indicates that he thought of gun ownership as an "essential liberty."

3. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

Free men should not need to bear arms. But just in case, you didn't ask permission. The U.S. Constitution said you could. And NO ONE is trying to take that away.

4. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

Ancient Greece was full of citizens, none of whom had a gun. In a democracy, a voter is a citizen. And anyone who disparages my citizenship because I'm not carrying can take it to the voting booth. I'm willing to bet that every democratic nation is populated by citizens, yet all have gun control.

5. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

Fear is not the government's motivating factor in regulating who can purchase deadly weapons of mass destruction. In fact, governments cannot fear. Governments are things, and as such, have no emotions.

6. Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.

Yes, we citizens would like to control of the quantity and sanity level of gun owners. The same way we citizens want to control who buys alcohol, who drives cars, what's in our meat.

7. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.

This is patently untrue since the U.S. Constitution handed you at least 10 right off the bat. Did you fight for those?

8. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

Seriously? Platitudes al la Jesus? I know there are probably about 1000 pick-up trucks somewhere in Alabama with this on a bumper sticker right next to one that says "Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace." If that doesn't offend Jesus, I don't know what will.

9. You don’t shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

One, where are you hanging out that you need to shoot to stay alive? Maybe you should move. Two, you may be shooting to stay alive, but the other guy is killed nonetheless.

10. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

Yes, you can assault someone with a baseball bat, or a knife, or a hot cup of coffee, but the person you assault has a better chance of surviving. So really, your goal here isn't assault, it's murder, because that is what a gun does.

11. 84,999,987 firearms owners didn’t kill anybody yesterday and won’t kill anybody today.

Congratulations? Hey, I didn't kill anybody yesterday either. 

12. The United States Constitution © 1791.

What? 

13. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

Really? So if the politicians ignore my right to privacy, I should take up arms against them? You advocate this? They are currently ignoring habeas corpus for alleged terrorists. Are you and your Glock gonna call them on it?

14. What part of “shall not be infringed” do you NOT understand?

The part of the amendment before that about a well-regulated militia? What part of "regulated" do you not understand? Also, please bear in mind, this was written when the arms in question were muskets. 

15. Guns have only two enemies; rust and politicians.

Your paranoid fear of politicians is starting to undermine your arguments for your own personal armory. Guns are things. They cannot have enemies. 

16. When you remove the people’s right to bear arms, you create slaves.

You create slaves by enslaving people. However, slavery, though offensively diminished by your trite comparison, has little to do with guns and everything to do with the subjugation of one group of people by another. Just because, once a person becomes a slave, they are denied a gun, doesn't mean that the gun, or lack of one created the slave.