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The Bar Sinister
by A.X. Perez
perez180ehs -+at+- hotmail.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

One of the nice things about the 1911 Colt pistol is that the "thumb safety" can be efficiently manipulated by the index finger of the left hand. Most pistols using frame mounted safeties have this same quality if the safety lever is of proper length. Even the flat little safety of the Millennium Pro shares this quality. On the other hand slide mounted safeties give me (and I assume other lefties) difficulties and thus require the mounting of ambidextrous safeties (a safety on each side of the pistol) on pistols like the Beretta 92.

Please note that the ambidextrous nature of the 1911 left side safety is the result of good engineering and not an accommodation to lefties. Approximately one in seven humans is left handed. Most of us have learned how to get along in a right handed world, and occasionally ambidextrous or left handed products (bolt action rifles come to mind) are made. However I suspect that most of these are made for righties who have been temporarily or permanently rendered left handed by injuries. Ambidextrous products also meet a need for right handers who have a full right hand and need to use a tool or weapon left handed. That said, in most cases well designed tools are naturally ambidextrous without making a special effort to accommodate lefties.

Over the years southpaws have done quite well, thank you very much. Imagine if left handers were the lucky recipients of the attention of politicians.

Certain percentages of tools would have to (by law) be made left handed. Sorry, ambidextrous versions don't count, at least not to meet the demands of the bureaucracy. Advocates, many of them right brained right handers and not true lefties, would run around and make sure our rights were protected and our needs met. A percentage of jobs and promotions would be reserved for left handed people. Right handers would turn against us in a backlash.

Or you could just leave us alone.

Properly engineered tools meet the needs of all users. Healthy societies meet the needs of their members without needing government buttinskis fine tuning how many yellow eyed brunettes get jobs in the manicure industry.

Currently we do have mandates for modified equipment and equal opportunity enforcement by government agents. These need to be treated as stopgaps until application of the ZAP and free market principles get rid of discrimination, an issue I'll address later if no one beats me to it (Jim, John, Ann, Neil, somebody?).

However, if we are not careful we may find ourselves in a situation where compliance Nazis become as big a threat to liberty as Hitler's National Socialists were.

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