One Born Every Minute
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@lneilsmith.org

Attribute to "L. Neil Smith at Random" at www.BigheadPress.com

Every now and again, I get a message that is so egregiously stupid, and in so many ways, that it begs to be shared with my readers.

This one appeared on my BigHeadPress blog; I have yet to approve it, although I will just as soon as I finish this column. Its author is a self-styled "Chris Cocksucker" for reasons that apparently make some sense to him, with the e-mail address, incongrously enough, of . For the uninitiated, the ILA is "the Institute for Legislative Action", the political organ of the National Rifle Association.

I've never been popular in NRA circles (having described them in print as the world's oldest and largest gun control organization, a phrase I stole from Vin Suprynowicz) but what we have here, I suspect, is some left wing socialist who has been led to believe that the NRA is way out there at the end of the pro-gun side of public affairs (it isn't -- I am), and who imagines that it's clever to have such an address.

"Excuse me," Mr. Cocksucker begins with a sophomoric counterfeit politeness that he finds it impossible to sustain for more than one single, solitary paragraph. "But did you ever think a bunch of scared shitless bozos with guns are fueling the fire of the problem than the answer."

Well, no, Mr. C., I didn't, because my life experience, the cold, hard facts, and 6000 years of human history all say loudly and plainly that you are embarrasingly wrong, and even worse (and possibly more embarrassing) taking a line of argument that's obsolete and thoroughly discredited.

I presume that you're whimpering here about Platte Valley High, the Amish killings in Pennsylvania, possibly even Columbine. But the simple truth -- a truth you're struggling desperately and hysterically to avoid, if only because of the level of personal responsibility it imposes on all of us -- is that in each of those cases, and the matter of the hijacked airliners on September 11, 2001, a single individual with a tiny little five-shot .38 could have changed the course of history.

A tiny little five-shot .38 denied them by a law that is itself illegal.

Pistol fighting isn't any fun, that much is true, and anybody who isn't worried about the prospect is either crazy or as immature and inexperienced as you are. But it seems to me that it's a lot easier to become a "scared shitless bozo" if you don't have a gun when you need one.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans successfully defend their lives, their families, and their property with a handgun every year. It's seldom reported by newspapers or TV, because they're owned and run by lowlife scumbags who would rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand.

There's a good reason for that: most of the male advocates of gun control -- more properly termed "victim disarmament" -- I've known were wife-beaters to whom the idea of armed females in their lives is terrifying.

"And if you are going to get all smug about your bullshit 'more guns, less crime' think that Florida is full of senile citizens who are probably too paralytic to be able to lift a gun, let alone shoot it."

A non-sequitur, but it's interesting that to Mr. C., everybody seems to be a "scared shitless bozo" or a paralytic "senile citizen". That makes it easy to propose stripping them of their only reliable means of self-defense, even it it means getting the cops to beat them up, kidnap, or kill them if they continue to exercise their human rights.

Once again, the truth is that, due to personal ownership and carrying of weapons, violent crime rates in places like Florida have plummeted over the past couple of decades, to the extent that, for a while, carjackers were only taking cars with license plates indicating that they were rentals. The theory, obviously, was that if the renters were tourists and from out-of-state, or outside the country, they'd be less likely to be armed -- and therefore unprofitably dangerous victims.

The problem was solved when the special license plates were done away with, and Florida began offering temporary gun-toting permits to visitors.

But Mr. C. is undeterred. "A better example for your more guns paradigm is Pennsylvania, which is a shall-issue state. Two school shootings and Philly has seen a rapid rise in violent crime and murder."

Look: I have never heard anything good about Pennsylvania and gun ownership, especially Philadelphia. America's "cradle of liberty" became a sinkhole of corrupt disregard for the Bill of Rights long before either of us was born, and it isn't likely to have changed when I wasn't watching it. Most likely the hoops a person is required to jump through are just too difficult or expensive for the ordinary individual.

That's one reason I oppose licensing.

"Hey," Mr. C. continues sockdologizing* nonsensically, "the same goes for Vermont which isn't even shall issue. Any citizen can pack heat."

Now this is just a lie of sarahbradian proportions. Survey after survey cites Vermont as the safest state in the U.S to live in. Again, I would have heard if that had changed. Vermont is a bloody thorn in the side of victim disarmers everywhere because simply respecting the individual's rights produces results that all the cops and all the laws in the world can't approach. Given the Internet to spead the word, the idea is contagious, and will eventually and inevitably spread to even the most backward states like Massachussetts and New York.

And Pennsylvania.

Mr. C. concludes, "The problem is that your guns are just penis extentions and you keep it up with mutual masturbation sessions where you scream down anyone who doesn't carry as a pinko, anti-american asshole."

I just love this stuff. Contrary to the litany that liberals like to repeat over and over to themselves in order to feel better about their own miserable existence, what Sigmund Freud actually wrote is that it is irrational _fear_ of weapons that is a symptom of sexual dysfunction.

Or as I put it more directly 25 years ago in my first novel _The Probability Broach_ (doesn't it just drive you crazy that it's still in print after two and a half decades?), liberals are the only ones who think guns are penises. They're the only ones who ever bring it up. Even if it were true, who's sicker: somebody who thinks his gun's a penis, or somebody like Mr. C. who wants to take everybody's penises away?

The final simple truth is that in over 40 years of political activity, I've never met a liberal who possessed the patience, the self-discipline, or the physical coordination to shoot well. Liberals live by whim and are deathly afraid everybody else does, too. They wouldn't trust themselves with a weapon, why should they trust anybody else?

Fortunately, it isn't up to them.

And by the way, Mr. C., you are a "pinko, anti-american asshole".

Notes

* I've always wanted to use that word.

Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been called one of the world's foremost authorities on the ethics of self-defense. He is the author of 25 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at lneilsmith.org.

Ceres, an exciting sequel to Neil's 1993 Ngu family novel Pallas was recently completed and is presently looking for a literary home.

A decensored, e-published version of Neil's 1984 novel, TOM PAINE MARU is available at: http://payloadz.com/go/sip?id=137991. Neil is presently working on Ares, the middle volume of the epic Ngu Family Cycle, and on Roswell, Texas, with Rex F. "Baloo" May.

The stunning 185-page full-color graphic-novelized version of The Probability Broach, which features the art of Scott Bieser and was published by BigHead Press www.bigheadpress.com has recently won a Special Prometheus Award. It may be had through the publisher, at www.Amazon.com, or at BillOfRightsPress.com.

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