The Epidemic of Pencil Violence
I was reading a news report from England, where the reporter was expressing his or her outrage at the "epidemic of knife violence" in London. I gather that knives must be jumping up and attacking people. Of course that's not the case. The U.K. does not allow its subjects to carry (or usually even own) firearms. Seems that concept has been successful enough that the criminals are now using knives. Clearly, the U.K. could ban knives and then the criminals can move on to some other weapon. I'd think pencils would work. A pencil is clearly a dangerous implement. Licensing of writing implements would have to be the next logical step in this bizarre attempt at stopping crime by restricting anything a victim could use to defend against a criminal. Law enforcement in England has even started searching through internet photographs posted on sites like Facebook, looking for any photo where a person has a weapon, which is not only a knife but even a baseball bat. If it's determined that the photo was taken in a public place, the person in the photo is then found and arrested, because possession of a weapon in a public place is - of course - illegal. If the photo is taken inside a home, the police arrive to talk to the people there and confiscate the weapon. I could not make this up. Kitchen knives, like baseball bats, are considered dangerous weapons. Surely pencils and the incredibly deadly fountain pen will be next.
We in the United States are not that stupid. Right? We will allow ourselves to be restricted from owning some firearms, eventually we will allow ourselves to be completely disarmed because we don't need weapons for self-defense. A crime is illegal - there is a law against one person harming another. Since we have these laws, we have no crime. We have no criminals and our government will take care of us.
Oh, but some people do like to hunt wild game, so those people should be allowed to have sporting firearms. No one needs any kind of military-style gun, the ubiquitous "assault rifle," or any gun that holds more than three or four cartridges. I'm not sure how many cartridges, so we can start with 10 and then go backward every few years until we get to one cartridge. Since people obey the law, everyone will go along with this plan. Eventually, we won't have guns here, but we should address the future problems from knives and pencils now rather than have those things harm others later. If, by some unthinkable shift in the universe, some evil person tries to do you harm, you can always call the police and they will instantly appear to defend you. We don't need "assault weapons" and the police will always take care of us.
Well, you can pass off personal responsibility if you're too weak to take care of yourself, and you can say that nobody else needs to have fighting firearms because you can't imagine yourself competent enough to operate one while defending yourself, but I believe I'll pass on that pile of crap. There are criminals, they often attack in groups, I'm responsible for me and one can never, ever have too much ammunition in a gunfight.
I also carry a knife. Pencils I will do without. I prefer a fountain pen.
We in the United States are not that stupid. Right? We will allow ourselves to be restricted from owning some firearms, eventually we will allow ourselves to be completely disarmed because we don't need weapons for self-defense. A crime is illegal - there is a law against one person harming another. Since we have these laws, we have no crime. We have no criminals and our government will take care of us.
Oh, but some people do like to hunt wild game, so those people should be allowed to have sporting firearms. No one needs any kind of military-style gun, the ubiquitous "assault rifle," or any gun that holds more than three or four cartridges. I'm not sure how many cartridges, so we can start with 10 and then go backward every few years until we get to one cartridge. Since people obey the law, everyone will go along with this plan. Eventually, we won't have guns here, but we should address the future problems from knives and pencils now rather than have those things harm others later. If, by some unthinkable shift in the universe, some evil person tries to do you harm, you can always call the police and they will instantly appear to defend you. We don't need "assault weapons" and the police will always take care of us.
Well, you can pass off personal responsibility if you're too weak to take care of yourself, and you can say that nobody else needs to have fighting firearms because you can't imagine yourself competent enough to operate one while defending yourself, but I believe I'll pass on that pile of crap. There are criminals, they often attack in groups, I'm responsible for me and one can never, ever have too much ammunition in a gunfight.
I also carry a knife. Pencils I will do without. I prefer a fountain pen.
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