Billy the Martian

I’m a gun-nut. I like shooting guns. I like cleaning guns. I like shopping for guns, and their assorted paraphernalia. I like talking about guns with my firearms-aware friends, and I like discussing the politics of gun-ownership.

So, I’m thinking I’d better put a Gun Rant here. People are expecting it.

I was surfing the many pro-gun sites out there, and I read many interesting things. Most of them were things I’d read before — this discussion has been
with us forever, and won’t go away any time soon. But while I surfed, I felt
a certain nagging feeling in the back of my head, and I let it grow into
something I could form into words. As I read all the pro- and anti- gun
sites, I got the feeling that they all missed the point.

There’s people who argue that, in America, at least, the Constitution
specifically mentions that we have the right to keep and bear. (And I agree
with them.) There are those that argue that the statistics of gun ownership
show that crime would decrease if responsible people were armed. The stats are
complicated at times — or perhaps there are people on one side or the other
who have a vested interest in making them complicated. There are people with
emotional stories to tell on both sides of the issue, either how a firearm took
the life of a loved one, or how one saved a life. There are people who argue
from a sportsman’s point of view, that guns are needed for hunting. There are
people who argue that we can’t get rid of all firearms, so we shouldn’t try in
the case of the law-abiding citizen.

Don’t get me wrong — I think that all of those arguments are good and valid.
But, I think that because I’m a computer nerd, I like to whittle things down to
single and simple causes. I think that at the root of gun ownership, there’s
one basic principle at stake:

You’re not qualified to decide this issue for me.

That’s it. It’s beautiful because it’s so universal. It doesn’t matter if you,
the reader, are the best chief of police the world has ever seen. It doesn’t
matter if you’re the most successful district attorney ever, nor if you’re
the best school administrator or the best parent in your town. You’re not
qualified to decide what tools I can use to defend myself.

The 2nd Amendment of the Constitution is just our forefathers declaring in
advance that the government is not qualified to decide this issue.

As rallying cries go, this doesn’t have much of a ring — as I’m reading
people’s opinions on this issue, especially ones I disagree with, I frequently
mutter it in my head. Alas, as soon as I do that,
as I start to utter it aloud, my voice switches to a bad English accent, and
I picture John Cleese in surgical gear in “The Meaning of Life” — the
scene where the mother in labor is asking Cleese what she should do now,
and he responds: “Nothing, dear, you’re not qualified!” And then I giggle.