Counseling the Councilman
©2001 by David Codrea
May 3, 2001
Councilman Gunhater (not his real name-but a fitting one) is at it again.
Last time, his bright idea was to have the City Council send a letter to the State Assembly urging passage of an "assault weapons" ban.
His peers didn't want to touch it, because it would require them to take a public stand on a hot-button issue. They're really much better at dithering
about zoning ordinance waivers and presenting plaques of appreciation than they are at taking a stand to preserve liberty, but, bless 'em, how could we
have ever opened a dog park without their inspired leadership? Besides, it's not easy finding dunking booth volunteers at the Community Center Open
House.
Fortunately, a hundred irate gun owners showed up, each with a speech and determined to be heard. The other side, representatives of a public that we
are told overwhelmingly supports gun control, managed to muster about four, none of whom seemed inclined to work the crowd. After stalling the proposal
until the end of the meeting in the hopes that the gun extremists would go away, the Council resolutely licked their fingers, held them up to the
breeze, and voted not to vote on the matter, sending those of us with
prepared comments home triumphant, albeit unvented.
This time out, the good Councilman wants to inflict his constituents with a holiday ammo sale ban. "No person," admonishes the Commissar wannabe,
"shall sell, give, lend or transfer ownership of any firearm ammunition," specifically for the Fourth of July and the seven days preceding it, and
ditto for New Year's Day.
He must have spent a lot of time drafting this ordinance, because, at least on the surface, it looks just like a grownup did it, meaning that the
boilerplate formatting, references to state penal code and disclaimers make it look authoritative. It almost makes up for the stupidity of what he's
proposing.
Well, not really.
His stated motive: Unregulated ammunition, he says, is "injurious to the public health" because the "proliferation (of people shooting guns in the
air during holidays) poses a great threat to public health"; "the ability to sell ammunition is substantially outweighed by the danger that can result
from discharged firepower striking, injuring or killing human beings"; and "other cities have enacted similar ordinances."
If I may: Guns in private hands save up to 2.5 million lives each year. Our city has never had one of the incidents this purportedly will prevent.
Withholding guns and ammunition from the law abiding has always had remarkably little effect on lawbreakers, except of course, to guarantee that
their victims will not be able to fight back. And citing other cities wasting resources on this nonsense smacks of "Billy's mom lets him do it!"
Councilman Gunhater knows that it's already against the law to endanger lives and property, and he knows his idiotic law will do nothing to prevent
violations. But that's not why he's doing this. You see, he hates armed citizens. He obviously thinks that anyone dumb enough to vote for him must
be too stupid to be trusted with a gun, and in fairness, I must concede the point on that one.
This is his way of expressing his contempt, and he'll tell whatever lie it takes to get portrayed in the local paper as a crusader, to advance his
political agenda, to disparage your right to keep and bear arms, and to characterize gun owners as irresponsible, sociopathic morons. Make no
mistake--we are talking about a creature who would rather see your grandmother raped at knifepoint than armed. And he's not above employing
force of police arms to impose his will on you.
It's no accident that he proposes a ban for the Fourth of July; it's a calculated insult to those who interpret the Constitution differently than
he does. And the inclusion of a seven-day window before New Year's Day is just his way of making anyone who gives Dad a box of 12-gauge shells for
Christmas a criminal.
True to form, the Council backed down. This time. Which saves me from conducting a holiday yard sale, and maybe sticking out a couple boxes of
hollow-points on the table next to the old brass lamp we never use, and the "Thomas the Tank Engine" videos that the kids have outgrown.
David Codrea is a co-founder of GunTruths
and a founding member and director of the national RKBA media project, Citizens of America. He also writes for Guns & Ammo. Read Mr. Codrea's online writing archive at
http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com/Codrea.
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