Stuff Happens

Law

I was minding my own business in a local coffee shop just the other day, twirling the foam on my half caf, fat free, triple shot, ginseng laced, mocha encrusted grande latte (or something like that) when an argument broke out at a nearby table. “THEY ought to do something about it!” screamed a pale, thin young man who was becoming red faced and literally shaking, such was his passion about the as yet unknown subject.

“And just what do you think THEY should do?” sneered an equally young man who was dressed in a red plaid shirt and cowboy boots.

“They ought to get rid of all the guns, that’s what!” came the emphatic answer from pale face, who was almost in tears.

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” shouted cowboy boots. “What about the Constitution? What about that, uh, that amendment thing that says we can carry guns?”

“Ah, a gun control discussion,” I thought to myself, and went back to my latte. Notwithstanding the youthfulness and philistinism of the combatants, their debate did fuel additional consideration of the subject on my part, and, as usual, it is you the reader who must inevitably suffer the consequences.

My coffee klatch friends were debating the merits of gun control in the wake of the recent and senseless Aurora, Colorado and Oak Creek, Wisconsin murders. As always when such tragic things happen, there is an element of our society that wants government (the omniscient THEY) to step in and create and enforce new laws to ensure nothing like that ever happens again. I suppose it is the naïve libertarian in me that whispers, “Neither government nor THEY can protect us from everything! Life has risks, and while senseless tragedy does occasionally happen, there is nothing out there that can protect us every moment of every day of our lives.

I don’t mean to minimize the recent tragedies that shattered hundreds of lives and affected all of us with a national sense of loss, but keeping in mind recent events and the shameless use of those events by the liberals to press their gun control agenda, consider the following statistics.

*There are around 30,000 annual gun deaths in this country. About half of them are suicides, roughly 40% are homicides, and the rest accidents.

*There was an almost equal number of deaths in 2010, 32,800 deaths in automobile accidents. Where is the lobby to take our cars away?

*One of the more alarming statistics is that nearly a half million people die annually in this nation as a result of cigarette smoking. Nobody (except smokers) is in favor of smoking, but the ever-present THEY has never made serious efforts to enforce a nationwide prohibition of smoking. Should THEY? Maybe THEY learned their lesson in the 1920s and ’30s.

But suppose the libs had their way and were able to create laws that would restrict our rights, movements, and activities to such a degree that we would be protected from every imaginable danger in this world. What kind of laws would they inflict on us to stop some of the bizarre tragedies that befall a few of us hapless citizens every year? How about these statistics?

*An average of 80-100 Americans die each year from bee or wasp stings.

*21 people have been killed so far in 2012 by lightning strikes, and there is a lot of year left.

*41 people have died so far this year from West Nile virus.

*450 Americans die annually by falling out of bed!

*Possibly my most favorite statistic, albeit a tragic one, is that every year in the United States somewhere between 2 and 12 people die when soda vending machines fall on them! Surely THEY can create some senseless and unconstitutional law to protect us from such evil.

One thing is certain. THEY are masters of wasting our money, and the last thing WE need is for THEY to be given carte blanche to create even more programs, laws, and bureaus to waste even more money on their ineffective agenda.

Here are just a few more statistics to prove my point about wasteful, useless, and abusive government programs:

*Number of terrorists shot or captured by TSA goons at American airports: ZERO!

*Number of terrorists just identified by TSA goons at American airports: ZERO!

*Number of children, grandmothers and others abused, demeaned, and sexually molested by TSA goons at American airports: Thousands if not Millions!

At what price protection?