The logic of more guns

I am one of those of us who live outside of the United States of America and who find it very difficult to understand that there are Americans who promote the acquisition of more guns for the people of America.

Jim Taylor has sent his mailing list an articulate statement on this topic – which is copied below.

THE NRA’S WARPED LOGIC

By Jim Taylor

I suspect many of you don’t want to hear anything more about the National Rifle Association. But instead of simply rejecting the argument presented by Wayne LaPierre, Executive Director of the NRA (tactfully delayed a whole week after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School) that the solution to having too many guns loose around the United States is more guns, I thought it might be worth exploring the implications of his logic in other areas.

LaPierre wants armed guards stationed at every school. He wants teachers to have access to guns, to defend themselves.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” asserted LaPierre.

LaPierre did not define how one knows whether a guy with a gun is a good guy or a bad guy. Perhaps they’d wear badges. Or white hats vs black hats. Although that would require a level of testing, validation, and regulation that I’m sure the NRA would resist.

Nor did LaPierre specify who’s going to pay for all those armed guards. The always-skeptical Huffington Post calculated a total of 173,990 kindergarten to Grade 12 schools. Plus 11,237 colleges and universities. All of which have multiple entry points that would need guarding. HuffPost estimated the task would require two million armed marshals. Perhaps they could be paid from increased educational taxes and tuition fees.

The NRA generously volunteered to assist with their training.

Now let’s consider who else might benefit from theNRA’s logic.

Big tobacco companies, for sure. They could claim to be an equal-opportunity manufacturer. The solution to smoking-induced lung cancer, they could righteously intone, is more cigarettes. Don’t be a victim of someone else’s second-hand carcinogens, they might say; inhale your own smoke.

It’s would be easy to recognize the bad guys. Evil health nuts would smoke prissy filter tips. Good guys smoke cancer-laden stogies.

How about the alcohol business? If misuse of alcohol can harm our youth, the obvious solution is to install a bar in every school, staffed by a trained bartender.
The only thing that stops a cheap drunk in his cups is a lush with a bigger martini.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) could get in on the act with their own campaign. It takes one to know one, they could argue. So the only thing that can stop a drunk behind the wheel is another drunk behind the wheel. They could offer to train vigilante drunks to smash into any other driver behaving erratically before the other driver can run into anyone. Think of it as an adult version of bumper cars.

Everyone knows that in highway accidents, the occupants of a Mercedes Smart car are less likely to survive a head-on crash than riders in a Kenworth truck. Obviously, everyone should drive a Kenworth. So what if it would wreak havoc with roads and parking lots? Look how much safer people would be.

Of course, a mishandled Kenworth can crush many more pedestrians than any Smart car. But that’s how you tell the difference between a good guy in the cab, and a bad guy in a small hybrid. The bad guy leaves less collateral damage.

LaPierre’s proposals should delight drug dealers. The solution to illegal street drugs is more street drugs. After all, if you’re spaced out on heroin, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, whatever, who in hell cares what some unscrupulous creep may be hustling out there in the lane…

It would be easy to tell good dealers from bad dealers, too. The bad guys have bullet holes in their backs.

Arms merchants, we should note, already practice LaPierre’s prescriptions. If one nation in the Middle East has nuclear capabilities and/or long-range missiles, they’ll all be safer if every nation has them. It may not make much sense, but it makes big profits. The good guys are readily recognizable, because they have U.S. missiles. Even if they’re firing those missiles at other guys who also bought U.S. missiles.

I’m sure the NRA principle would also benefit the big GMO corporations — Monsanto, Dow Agrosciences, Dupont, etc. And the nuclear power plant industry. To say nothing of the petrochemical companies doing fracking under water acquifers.

But I haven’t had time to work out the precise details of their possible presentation.

The 18th Century English poet Alexander Pope once wrote scathingly, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” Educators particularly should welcome LaPierre’s reasoning. To combat “little learning” they could promote more learning. Teach logic. Research. Demographics. Critical analysis…

Hang on a minute — that might actually work! Especially if they could start with Wayne LaPierre….

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Published with permission from Jim Taylor.

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