06Aug8e guntotingliberals
The only way for us to have liberty is for us to be
willing to risk our lives in its defense, unless other
people, better than ourselves, are willing to risk
their lives for us,
If you point a gun at me, you’d better be willing to
pull the trigger. Because if you aren’t, you are
going to loose your gun.
What we need, in this country, is to move in the
direction of parents thinking of themselves as
primarily responsible for the education of their
children. We can argue endlessly about which came
first, the chicken or the egg, whether parents have
abdicated their responsibility because of government
taxation or government intrusion to the point that
children aren’t disciplined at all for fear that the
discipline will be considered inappropriate or whether
government foolishness is because parents have
abdicated their responsibility. But the answer, in
the case of toy guns, as in the case of many other
problems in our society, is the same regardless of the
reasons that the problems exist.
The other thing that is needed is a common sense
approach to problem solving such as was demonstrated
by the West Valley City, Utah police department about
two decades ago. As I was driving down the street in
that city, a child (about eight years old) stepped off
the curb holding a toy gun. Using an apparently
well-practiced two-handed stance, he planted his feet
resolutely on the pavement in the path of my car and
aimed the gun at my head.
You can argue, if you want to, that I might have acted
differently if the perp had been an adult or if I had
thought that the gun was a firearm. Or that I’d be
dead if I hadn’t acted differently if it were a
firearm. But it really didn’t occur to me to try to
determine whether it was a lethal weapon. I believe
that in that kind of situation, I have a moral
obligation to disarm the perp, which is what I did.
(I must confess that I intended to break his trigger
finger in the process and, as far as I know, I didn’t
accomplish that. I guess I need more training.)
Anyway, after taking his gun (and fully aware that I
might be arrested for even touching the kid), I took
it to the police station and showed it to an officer
on duty. I told him what happened and asked whether
he could promise me that the gun would be returned to
the boy only if his father came with him to the police
station.
The reply was an enthusiastic “You bet!”
I left the station and never heard any more about it.
Is there a man with mind so small that it hasn’t
occurred to him that he can gain at least a fraction
of a second of advantage over the police by putting an
orange plastic cap over the muzzle of the gun he is
using to commit a crime? Or can we deduce that no
criminal is mentally challenged to that degree because
all such idiots have already been elected to Congress
or to one of the several legislatures in this country?
I am opposed to the use of toy guns except in the
hands of people teaching or learning how to handle
guns safely and how to use them effectively. Most
police agencies are now using colored replicas that
feel like firearms but would never sell in a toy store
because they aren’t realistic enough in the view of
people who buy toy guns. So yes, I am opposed to the
sale and use of toy guns.
And I am opposed to any government agency or entity
telling us that we cannot manufacture, sell or own toy
guns.
Our own liberties are best preserved when we work for
the liberties of even those with whom we profoundly
disagree.
I guess it really may be foolish to publish this on
the Internet, given that it may be only a matter of
time before the constabulary are at our door demanding
that they be confiscated, but our four-year-old
grandson recently made two toy guns, each from two
brightly colored pieces of large-scale Legos, taping
them together so the pieces wouldn’t fall apart. I’m
trying to teach him to keep them pointed in a safe
direction. But it is his parents responsibility, not
ours, to decide whether to prohibit “playing” with
them.



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