This week’s quote is from the Wallace Shawn/Andre Gregory classic, My Dinner With Andre:
When I was 10 years old, I was rich – I was an aristocrat. Riding around in taxis, surrounded by comfort – and all I thought about was art and music. Now I’m 36, and all I think about is money.
And, of course, there’ll be other people’s maternal pugs…
I don’t agree with the gun lobby’s reckless and often tragic insistence that everyone should be allowed to purchase and carry guns everywhere, but I can at least understand it. And I can see where the unfortunate wording of the 2nd Amendment gives them constitutional cover.
But what I don’t get, and what disturbs the hell out of me is that it’s not enough for them to put deadly weapons in the hands of everyone who wants one, regardless of how violent or racist or sociopathic they may be – they want to make it easier for them to use those weapons too.
Isn’t facilitating unfettered gun ownership already Mission Accomplished? Does forbidding someone from shooting an unarmed teenager in the street because they supposedly feel threatened really infringe on the right to bear arms? Is owning a handgun just not as appealing if there aren’t enough opportunities to use it? Was that depressing gun sales? Did the NRA take a poll and find that potential gun buyers were holding off because it just wasn’t worth it if The Man wouldn’t let them get away with murder?
And please, since eliminating all restrictions on gun ownership and use is a conservative value, explain to me how lowering the bar for the use of deadly force squares with the “culture of life” that the right loves to crow about and accuse liberals of opposing?