It's the Handguns, Stupid!

I haven’t been able to get the massacre of children at Newtown, CT, out of my mind. The images that tend to stick are those of the three six-year-olds featured on the front page of the Tribune. How can this happen is the question that consumes our minds.

As usual, the deaths of these young people immediately became a political issue, as does everything in the U.S. Liberals, Andrea Mitchell was the first, couldn’t wait to get on-camera and demand stricter gun laws. With Liberals it’s always blame the guns – it’s like blaming a pencil for what gets written. Or, and this is a favored charge in the media for the past ten or so years, blaming the SUV for the accident. Liberals don’t want to blame  who’s really at fault – must be politically incorrect.

Conservatives, always with more rational viewpoints, say it’s the whack-job behind the gun responsible for who gets shot. Without the whacko, the gun sits home in the closet. All the mass murderers are nuts … and cowardly. It’s been pointed out several times recently that each of these nuts showed up to shoot unarmed people down in places least likely to have any kind of security. For example, the muslim major at Fort Hood, TX, went to an area of the air base where no one was permitted to carry arms. Of course, Liberals will now have a fine time passing laws to take away guns. The only rational reason for this is to protect the government from its citizens, who are getting fed up with stupid politicians.

I got to wondering what would happen if the whack-jobs were not using guns to kill people. What if they took a slingshot to the mall, or a bow and arrows to the theater? Hey, what do you think would happen if the killers starting using golf clubs? I wonder what the response would be. Picture this:

“Look, Mr Superintendent, ten children were killed with a golf club yesterday.,” said the State Police Commissioner. “We can’t have that sort of thing going on. We’re going to confiscate all of the district’s golf clubs. It’s an order from the governor.”

“Well, I don’t know,” says Clearly Wishywashy, superintendent of schools, “don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?”

“No. And demand all the teachers with golf clubs to bring them in. We’ll have a golf club bonfire on the football field on Saturday. The governor wants to burn as many murder weapons as possible.”

The superintendent was visibly upset. He didn’t want to turn in his golf clubs for burning, although he didn’t care what happened to the clubs of the others. He shrugged his shoulders; the commissioner left the school. We next see him at the local police department:

“Captain,” he said, “it’s necessary that you and your men go through the community and confiscate all the golf clubs. It’s an order from the governor.”

“Are you whacky, sir? The people will never give up their golf clubs. They’d rather give up their first-born sons.”

“I don’t want their sons, Captain, I want their golf clubs. Golf clubs kill people.”

“No they don’t. People kill people. Golf clubs stay in golf bags until taken out. Beside, these are law-abiding people, most of them, who don’t kill kids with golf clubs.”

“We have to take away the temptation. Golf clubs represent a huge danger …”

“So do weed whackers. Want us to pick them up, too?”

“Stow the sarcasm, Captain, and do your job.”

The zealot from the state police took his crusade to the House of Representatives. From the podium he proclaimed his desire to burn all the golf clubs.  Speaker Boehner quickly pulled him side. “What the hell are you doing? You’re asking members of Congress to give up their golf clubs? They’d sooner give up their mistresses. You need to change your message.”

“But golf clubs kill people, Mr. Boehner, they need to be taken away in the interests of national security.”

“My gosh,” says Boehner, pounding one fist into the other, “without golf clubs there would no meetings, no deals made. I think it would cause a wholesale desertion of the House. They’d all run off to be the first to peddle golf clubs on the black market.”

Nancy Pelosi walks up. Boehner explains what’s on the commissioner’s mind.

“Oh, no, no, Commissioner. You can’t take our golf clubs. It’s not allowed. Your job is not to blame the real culprit in this case. Your job, sir, as a patriot, is to divine a way to blame handguns for the attack on the children killed with golf clubs.”

“Wait a minute, madam, just hold on a minute,” says the steamed up commissioner. “Are you saying that when a person uses a handgun to kill people, blame the handgun not the person; and when it’s golf clubs that kill people, still blame the handguns, not the people? Is that what you’re saying?

“Yes, I suppose it is,” says the minority speaker, a dizzy look on her face. “That’s how it is in Liberalthink, you know.”

“Reckon so,” says the commissioner, who has experienced an epiphany. As he left the capital, a version of an old Roger Miller song came to mind. He couldn’t remember the words only the tune, so he made up a version of his own to fit the occasion: “I’ve heard tell libs don’t think too well, But we conservatives do; While we were blessed with common sense, You got a do-wacka-do-wack-do-wacka-do-wack-do-wack-do.”