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Saturday
Night Assault Specials
by
Garry Reed
There
once was a proper young English miss named Alice Pleasance. She, according
to Lewis Carroll biographers, was the real life inspiration for a
fictional Alice who tumbled down a rabbit hole and commenced a tour of a
riotous realm called Wonderland.
During
her wanderings, she encountered an egg named Humpty Dumpty and came away
with a memorable sound bite.
Declaimed
Mr. Dumpty, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to
mean – neither more nor less."
When
politicians pontificate, and news writers report it, members of these two
tribes often adhere to the Old Ovoid's opinion – words mean just what
they choose them to mean.
A
favorite phrase of these public persuaders is "assault weapon."
If
a DC blowhard wants to pass a bill with no other motive than to get his
name appended to a piece of legislation he can always blather on about the
threat of "assault weapons." He almost certainly doesn't know
the difference between a nonfunctional lever-action carbine reproduction
and an actual assault weapon. Likely, neither does the reporter snooping
for a scoop.
But
it doesn't matter. It plays well on the floor of the House, in the
gun-hater's handout and in the pages of the Hometown Herald.
Assault
weapons, being scary-looking to some, attracts professional scaremongers.
When people like David Kopel, associate policy analyst for the libertarian
Cato Institute, notes that "No more than .8% of homicides are
perpetrated with rifles using military calibers" (i.e., assault
weapons), it doesn't stop the scaremongers from christening everything
that even looks like a long-barreled gun an "assault weapon."
(note
that's "point 8%," not 8%.)
It's
a game, of course, and there are two things that give the game away. If,
as history reports, assault weapons were developed for assault troops to
assault enemies with, what are self-defense weapons?
Why
do we never read stories of homeowners driving off thugs with a
"self-defense weapon?" In fact, if an "assault weapon"
is used for self-defense doesn't that make it a "self-defense
weapon?"
Where
is the news article of the carjacking victim beating off his assailant
with a self-defense nine iron?
Why
haven't we heard newscasts of a would-be rape victim defending herself
with a self-defense spike heel?
The
other game giver-awayer is, where are all the other assault weapons? If a
firearm used in an assault is an assault weapon why aren't all other
weapons used in assaults called assault weapons?
Wouldn't
a brick used to attack a person be an assault brick?
Shouldn't
hate speech be called assault words?
Shouldn't
a hand signal flashed during a road rage incident be called an assault
finger?
Another
favorite derogatory term deployed against another favorite hate object by
the anti-gun Marx-huggers is "Saturday Night Special." The term
simply describes an inexpensively constructed and cost effective handgun
for people who can't afford a Glock or a Beretta for their self-defense
needs.
But
there are many inexpensively constructed and cost effective products in
the world. Why is a handgun the only product called a Saturday night
special?
Where
do we test drive the new four-cylinder five-speed Kia Rio Saturday Knight
Special?
Where
does a poor woman go to get a Saturday Night Special Facial?
Where
can we order a Double Meat Double Cheese Saturday Nite Special with Dill
Pickles and Secret Sauce?
And
when will we be reading a crime report like this:
Hometown
Herald - A pair of Assault Thugs stole a Ford Saturday Night Special Crew
Cab and drove it through the front door of the Saturday Nyte Special 99
Cent Store. They attacked the ATM machine with an Assault Crowbar but the
shop owner drove them off with a small Self Defense Assaultin' pepperbox
revolver.
(About
that Assaultin' Pepperbox. If His Eggship Sir Dumpty were here he would
say that it means "just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor
less.")
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