Guns Ablazin'

I’m gonna make it a landmark year for Burning Stickman by weighing in on not one…but two hot issues in America. I know that you are used to me discussing such important topics as mutant squirrels on the golf course, energy drinks, and tattoos, but for some reason I have felt an urge to tackle more important topics (it’s either my friend Rob’s comment about how he believes that I could write better stuff or all the B vitamins that I am currently taking). With the Supreme Court making a very influential ruling in D.C. this year and a controversial law passing in Georgia this week I have decided to discuss the issue of guns and gun control.

Gun policy is a very tough issue to discuss rationally in the United States. With zealots on both sides we sometimes find it hard to plow that middle ground to look for the answers. Far to one side you have the Gun Zealots: people who not only want to own guns but want no restrictions whatsoever on what they can do. Most of these people belong to the NRA. Far on the other side you have the No-Gun Zealots: People who don’t even want police to have guns, let alone pedestrians. These are the people who don’t believe in war and wear shirts with slogans like “Uzis Are For Floozies.” Then there are people like myself who believe in both the right to own and carry guns and also in gun control and the laws that help to police what we do with guns. I’ve had plenty of conversations with my friend Dave (who is a closet Republican and very right wing) on this subject when we were working together and have realized that I am considered by both sides of zealots to be the worst kind of person…the free-thinker who aligns himself with neither side and has problems with both. So, to make it an even race, I am going to play devil’s advocate and explore often heard arguments from both sides of the issue.

Gun Zealots: “We have the right to protect ourselves!”
I agree. Everyone has a right to protect themselves and their loved one. What does this have to do with carrying concealed weapons? Do you really believe that having a gun strapped to your side or in your purse at a crowded restaurant is going to solve anything should an emergency happen? Numerous television and movie scenarios have taught us that when a situation arises (like a bank/store robbery or being held hostage) that the person who freaks and pulls out their concealed gun usually ends up the dead one. Protecting yourself in your home is one thing…trying to be a police officer will only get you deeper into shit. You’ll see what I mean when someone gets sued for shooting a bystander or a kid with a toy gun.

Anti-Gun Zealots: “Guns kill innocent bystanders!”
I’m gonna fall back on a cliché here…guns don’t kill people, people kill do. Guns are just a tool, like a hammer or a shovel, and it is the people who wield those tools who are the killers. Hammers and shovels have also been used to kill people in the past…do we start digging with our hands and pounding nails with our foreheads? Numerous television and movie scenarios have taught us that when a situation arises (like rescuing a hostage from drug lords or a zombie uprising) that the person who stays calm and uses their gun effectively can save lives. As long as there are laws in place to keep ordinary Joes with guns from bringing them to possibly stressful situations (like a bar where a drunken fight over a girl can erupt or a mass transit system like a bus or subway where people are just generally pissed all the time) then owning a gun and carrying a gun is marginally safe.

Gun Zealot: “2nd Amendment says I can have guns!”
No it doesn’t. It says you have the right to keep and bear arms, it says nothing about guns.( “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”) I don’t have time to get into the argument here about what Madison meant when he wrote the Amendment, I just know that it says nothing about guns…although that was surely the implied intent. It also says nothing to insure the right to carry concealed weapons in public. The main thing that I get tired of is gun advocates continually spouting the 2nd Amendment like a mantra and never actually producing new ideas or arguments to support their claim to have guns. Just because you can say the words “second amendment” does not make a point for you. Numerous television and movie scenarios have taught us that when a situation arises (like a two hour car ride with your slightly balding, shit-for-brains co-worker who dips) where a subject like gun control is discussed, the guy who keeps spouting “2nd Amendment” as their defense usually loses the argument (or gets tossed from a moving vehicle down a back road in Palmersville).

Anti-Gun Zealot: “Guns are dangerous and can go off anytime and hurt an innocent person!”
I love this one. The old notion that guns have a will and a consciousness of their own. Once again I must bring out the cliché…guns don’t kill people, Robert Blake does. A gun is an inanimate object, a tool, that does nothing unless it is…wait for it…here it comes…used. A gun doesn’t go off by itself just sitting in a closet, there has to be some outside force acting on it (like someone picking it up and firing it). Numerous television and movie scenarios have taught us that most accidental shootings are actually on purpose (“I didn’t mean to shoot my bitch of a wife, the gun went off while I was cleaning it”), and that even if it is an accident there is still usually human involvement (i.e. cleaning a gun, looking at a gun, playing with a gun).

If movies and television have taught us anything it’s that guns are great for being trapped in the Nakatomi Plaza or for a mass zombie attack, but not so great to take to a bar or on subway. If you want the privilege of taking a gun everywhere you go then become a law enforcement person. Don’t think that a two day class and a test puts you on the same level as a police officer who has gone through months of training (mentally and physically) just because you get a piece of paper at the end of the weekend saying “concealed weapon permit.” If you want to be able to protect yourself and others in public settings then take a martial arts course. If you do carry a gun into public then please use tact and intelligence as your guides. Don’t be the guy who pulls his piece to show off in a crowded bank. And please, please, please stop quoting the 2nd Amendment around me unless you are ready to engage yourself in an intelligent discussion complete with full ideas and examples. And remember, guns are just lifeless objects (unless a voodoo priestess imbues one with an evil spirit). It takes a person to pick up a gun and use it against someone else in either malice or self defense, and it takes human interaction to cause gun related accidents as well. Don’t bitch about guns, bitch about the people who don’t know how to use guns responsibly. Gun laws are not there to limit the freedoms of responsible people, they are put into place to limit the interaction of stupid people with guns and the public. Numerous television and movie scenarios have taught us that there is always at least one set of drunks arguing in a bar, so next time you are complaining about not being able to bring your gun into a restaurant or bar look over at those guys across the room and be thankful that they weren’t able to bring one as well.

It's a Celebration Bitches!

After looking around my office I have come to the realization that with rising gas prices, higher unemployment, and an overall flailing economy that there is a lack of morale among the workforce that should be addressed. Even the lucky ones of us that have jobs right now seem to be disheartened in the workplace. I did a little research and (using my amazing ability to draw vague parallels between two unrelated objects) discovered that the root of our depression in the workplace stems from the lack of national holidays that are celebrated on a large scale. We need holidays for people to rally around like Independence Day. Who really gives a crap about Columbus Day except that it inconveniences you due to the banks being closed? So what we need is some new holidays that can be enjoyed even if you don’t get off from work because of them…nay, I go further and say that we should invent holidays that you can enjoy especially at work.

I am making a push all over the nation to have to have Congress declare today Point Out an Annoying Co-Worker and Expound Upon Their Horrible Faults Day. I believe this will be big in government offices, like the one I work in, due to the “flattery” (ass-kissing) that goes on daily. In government offices (or most corporate offices) you can’t just come right out and tell a co-worker that they have the IQ of a raisin, or has no sense of humor, or has a funny smell (old whiskey and despair) emanating from them. Most of the time you have to just bear the brunt and wait until after work so that you can spill all of your grievances out to a spouse/best friend/total stranger, or you can write a blog about it. This is why we need to have one day where we can discuss, candidly, with co-workers all the reasons that they suck without fear of retribution.

Okay…so take a hyena and breed it with a chimpanzee, then give it a cold, then boil it in hot bacon fat while beating it about the head and shoulders with a tube sock full of chocolate covered peanuts. The sound it would make it coming from the office across the hall. At first I thought Maybe a large water mammal is dying, and then I thought Maybe I’m dead and this is my personal hell, and then I realized that the sound hovering above all of our cubicles was actually a form of laughter.

Yes, laughter. Not the tinkling laughter of children playing in summer creeks, or the full bellowing laugh from a great joke that starts in your lower abdomen and continues to roll in waves through your body. Think of nails against chalkboard, Wicked Witch of the West laughter. The kind of laughter that floats through the air and gently alights on your ear, only to then perform a flying roundhouse jump kick, in the style of Steven Segal, to the back of your eyeballs from inside your skull. So I popped my head around the edge of my cubicle and fully expected to see an arm sticking out of a cauldron and a green-faced harpy reading Dave Barry. Instead I see my boss on the phone looking very pleased with herself.

Like the careful observer of humankind and its traits that I am I studied my new subject with rapt interest. How could a woman in her 60’s (or maybe 70’s…or myabe80’s…hell, I don’t know) get the lung capacity to bring this out-of-tune bagpipes of a laugh to bear and send it to hover in space somewhere around the equator? Was she previously the lead singer in a Death Metal band? What the hell is so funny and why can’t be in on the joke? What is that on my shoe? How much hardwood do I need to redo my living room? I wonder what’s for dinner?

Sorry, I got sidetracked. So, as I observed (and tried to staunch the flow of blood from my ears) I realized that she was laughing at her own jokes. Possibly it could be that no one on the other end of the line was laughing (they were probably dead due to their cerebral cortex suddenly revolting and escaping through the ear to beat them senseless with a cricket bat) so she decided, in the interest of keeping the one-sided conversation going, that she should laugh at what she was saying to show everyone in our office (and most of the Northern Hemisphere) that she was funny and effervescent and people liked her. The problem is that no one could hear her after approximately 37 seconds because our eardrums had burst in attempt to save our sanity.

So a holiday in which I could discuss with her why my bleeding innards (caused by the crushing sound waves of her laughter) would be a concern to me and the steps to place her head firmly up the rear orifice of a yak to stop her siren screeching would be a welcome addition to our national repertoire in my book. I believe that Point Out an Annoying Co-Worker and Expound Upon Their Horrible Faults Day (or POACEUTHF Day) will be a smashing success in telling co-workers and bosses like this exactly what it is that peeves you off about them and how they can “take a trunkie in the tradesman’s entrance” for all you care (I find it best to use British slang when belittling people you work with). We should all push our local Representatives in Washington DC that this new holiday would benefit everyone, pointing out the possible uses that they themselves could enjoy putting down their higher-ups in a certain house that is painted the opposite of black.

Even if Congress fails to make POACEUTHF Day a national holiday we can still enjoy the fruits this implied holiday by participating in it anyway. Go ahead, tell that co-worker that his mustache looks like a walrus is humping his face! Tell the person in the next cubicle that constantly asking you pointless questions and then answering them themselves while you are trying to finish the expenditure report makes you want to throttle them with wet noodles. Let your co-worker know that his inability to perform even the most menial of work-related tasks makes you wish daily for his lower intestine to explode. It could be fun…at the least it would be enlightening to those who have gained your ire. Good luck everyone!