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Lookie! Lookie! Freedom Cookie!
Reviewing Aaron Zelman's "Goody Guns"
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com

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As a lifelong freedom activist, one concept I live by is that, if you can't defeat the enemy of liberty outright, at least you can make his stomach burn and churn, cost him a night's sleep, and maybe even cut his life expectancy by five minutes. Enough of that, and you've won.

That's one reason teaching childen about weapons—not just about their right to self-defense but to the means of self-defense, as well—is so thoroughly soul-satisfying. Sure, you're passing the torch of individualism on to the next generation, thereby ensuring the ultimate survival of Western Civilization. But you're also making the victim disarmament crowd so angry and crazed that they'll gnash their teeth, bite through their own tongues, and tear their hair out by the roots.

A good friend and fellow libertarian, novelist Jim Lesczynski—one of the truly great figures in the general freedom movement—in a measured response to a lame-brained attempt to outlaw toy guns in New York City, solicited donations and took armloads of toy guns to hand out in Harlem—a piece of street theater that proponents of the new law have tried desperately ever since to convince themselves was a failure.

I've written several "coming of age" novels myself—BrightSuit MacBear and Pallas come to mind—in which the acquisition of a personal weapon marks a positive milestone in the life of a young person.

Of course I was preceded in this by the legendary Robert Heinlein, whose wonderful story Red Planet—concerning the struggle for an independent Mars sparked by an arrogant "Earthie" school headmaster confiscating weapons carried every day by colonial children on that newly-settled planet—was originally bowdlerized by his New York publishers. To their credit, Del Rey Books later reprinted the novel intact.

Now along comes Aaron Zelman, illustrious founder and director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, with "a wonderful, awful idea" (to quote Dr. Suess), that tops 'em all. Aaron has begun to market special cookie cutters that will let all the boys and girls out there, and their folks, create tasty treats in the shape of a handgun!

To me at least, the prototype looks exactly like a compact Glock semiautomatic pistol. Made in the USA, Aaron's revolutionary cutters, which produce what he calls "Goody Guns", will come accessorized—with a couple of miniature American flags to decorate your cookies, and copies of two famous "Gran'pa Jack" comic books, Gun Control Kills Kids and Do Gun Prohibitionists Have a Mental Health Problem?.

There has even been talk of cookie recipes.

What we have here is a simple but ingenious object that operates on more than one level. It will familiarize children just a little bit, children as young as three or four, with handguns, and it will help to associate them with something nice—lovely hot homemade cookies—to counteract all of the vicious anti-gun propaganda that is being pounded into them, day and night, by the public school system and the socialist mass media. With tongue only partly in cheek, Aaron even sent me photographs of kids eating their gun-shaped cookies "safely", from the backstrap forward, to avoid pointing the muzzle at themselves.

Or others.

I made grilled cheese sandwiches with my cutter, and have assured Mr. Zelman that I will carefully observe all of the proper safety protocols.

While I am doing so, I will enjoy imagining the socialists who call themselves liberals (not to overlook an increasingly anti-gun crowd of Nixonian neo-conservatives) writhing and screaming with inarticulate rage over the way Aaron has found to access children's minds at a pre-verbal level, far earlier than Sarah and the Brady bunch can ever hope to reach them. And by the time they're old enough to hear and understand what's being shoveled at them, they'll be immune.

"Put the gun-haters on the run," as Aaron says, "with your Goody Gun!"

And I will ponder whether my home-schooled daughter (17 now, she began shooting, sitting on my lap at the firing line, at the age of 2 1/2) would have been kicked out of school for bringing a gun-shaped cookie.

Turn your kitchen into an Arsenal of Liberty. Save your gun rights now and far into the future. Order your Goody Guns cookie cutter at www.goodyguns.com or www.jpfo.org or simply by calling toll-free 1(800)869-1884. The price is $9.95, postpaid, two for $16.95. And while you're at it, you might include some suggestions as to what other gun-shapes you'd like to see. Aaron has mentioned quite a number of possibilities: a 19th century single-action Bisley-style revolver, a 20th century double-action snubbie, there's probably a 1911 in there, somewhere, as well. And maybe even a short-barrelled carbine.

Me, I'd get an enormous kick out of making cookies (and grilled cheese sandwiches) in the distinctive shape of a C96 Broomhandle Mauser.

How about you?

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.

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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