Setting The Assault Weapon Standard, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #310 | @MDWorld

January 21, 2013 Mike Gold 9 Comments

What is the difference between guns and bombs? Speed? Efficacy in fulfilling their mission?

If our right to bear arms should include assault weapons and 100 bullet magazines, I argue that for the sake of consistency bombs must be permitted as well. Most hand-made bombs are far less dangerous than assault weapons: you can aim an assault weapon, but most accessible bombs have a more generalized killing pattern. Indeed, when it comes to the so-called Molotov cocktail – by the way, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov never used one – the vast majority of these devices ignite well before they reach their targets, often blowing up while still in the pitcher’s arm. This puts a different spin on the “right to bear arms.”

If assault weapons are more powerful and more destructive than Molotov cocktails and other locally produced destruction media, and assault weapons are legal, then shouldn’t these less-dangerous devices be legal as well?

In most precincts, it is perfectly legal to sell weapons to people who clearly are under the influence. However, a person who sells a drink containing alcohol to that very same drunk in that very same condition is likely to lose his vocation, possibly his business, and maybe even his freedom. That certainly seems unfair. Bartenders are working stiffs; let’s be consistent here.

If a legal assault weapon can cut down 100 people each and every minute, why are we so uptight about “suitcase” bombs – a.k.a. “dirty” bombs, which is a stupid name because every successful bomb leaves quite a mess. In fact, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has great difficulty defining dirty bombs as weapons of mass destruction. So let us not worry about such things; since assault weapons are okay, suitcase bombs must be okayer.

We now have to stand in line at the pharmacist in order to buy non-prescription cold medicine. We have to fill out forms, show picture ID, and assure everybody that we’re not using pseudoephedrine and ephedrine to make crystal meth. Whereas estimates vary widely, reputable sources report about 1000 people die each year from crystal meth. Nearly 30,000 people die from guns each year. So, I ask you, why the hell do I have to wait in line at Walgreens?

And how many people will die from all that coughing and sneezing in public places? The flu multiplies like horny amoebas. Why is the flu legal?

Because we can’t stop it?

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com , every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check the website above for times. Gold also joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.