Paul Murty’s Friday column “America should rid itself of gun use” is wholly unoriginal and poorly crafted. Murty floats a few arguments for the elimination of private arms in this country, and, as usual, they don’t make it off the ground.
The first half of his valuable column space is wasted because gun rights in this country have nothing to do with England, knives or even gun deaths. The right to bear arms is the second amendment for a reason: In order to make certain the government doesn’t become oppressive of its people, the citizenry need to have the means to overthrow it. Murty posits, incorrectly, that what weapons exist in the hands of private citizens “are nothing compared to the might of the armed forces.” There are nearly as many guns in the U.S. as there are citizens, and the military is only so big. Remember, the colonists were no match for the British, and last time I checked, I don’t have a hankering for tea or speak like Sir Alec Guinness.
Murty’s subsequent conclusion that we don’t need guns for the reason the founders envisioned goes something like this: In the event the government did become totally renegade, the military would so squarely kick the collective asses of 300 million people if they decided to get out of line, and we should just give up any pretense of defending ourselves or exercising our rights to revolt. I’d be laughing if it wasn’t such a stupid and equally cowardly statement.
Apparently, in an attempt to say as many dumb things as one can in a given column, Murty compares the Bible to the Constitution in what can only be described as an example of Bush-league sophistry. If you need help seeing how this comparison is just idiotic beyond words, ask a friend who knows how to dress themselves explain it to you.
Finally, forgetting all of the previous points, Murty believes that ridding the country of nearly 300 million guns could even be pulled off. Or perhaps, when he read back over the rest of his flawed column, he shrugged his shoulders and figured, “What the hell?”
