What the Fork?

Let’s see if I can make this funny…

I was poking around CNN this morning and I came across this article in which Vince Vaughn outlined his opinions on guns. He likes them. A lot.

Now I’m on record as not being a big fan of guns. I don’t like them in much the way that Vince Vaugh likes them a lot.

I don’t like that we seem to have a love affair with guns in this country. It feels a little bit creepy. We wrap our adoration with guns up in a whole bunch of contrived excuses but I think we mostly just like guns a lot.

I may not be a fan of guns but I understand that the second amendment gives us a right to bear arms. I’m not questioning Vince Vaughn’s right to carry a gun any more than he should question my right to not carry one. Since I’ve clearly stated that I don’t want Vince’s guns, let’s get down to my issue.

In his steadfast opinion that we’d all be a lot more safe if everyone carried guns, Vaughn makes the following statement about banning guns:

Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat

Um…ok. That’s a cute analogy that was probably pulled right of an NRA brochure but it really isn’t the same thing at all. See, people don’t need a fork to get fat. In fact, they can down a few bags of Cheetos without any utensils at all.

Maybe that’s what Vaughn means. If people don’t have guns to kill people, they will just use a different tool. Just as a gluten sensitive overweight person will use their hands to eat Cheetos if a fork isn’t legal, so too will a crazed lunatic use a knife if a gun isn’t legal.

The difference being that a fat person can eat a lot more Cheetos with their hands but a crazy person can’t kill as many people as quickly with a knife.

Who needs a fork anyway? You can eat Cheetos with chopsticks!

The basic argument that we should arm school teachers to prevent school shootings sounds logical until we consider that instead of one shooter, we now have multiple shooters. No matter the intent of all those people with guns, the fact is there are more bullets flying around and it really seems like that is a recipe for more people getting hurt.

But what if it isn’t? What if the single best idea for safer schools is an arsenal in every classroom?

Even if allowing teachers to carry guns is a great idea (until a teacher goes crazy and starts shooting up their school – but that would never happen because teachers never go crazy), I don’t honestly think Vaughn or people like him want their guns because of school shootings.

Earlier in the article, Vaughn says this:

We have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government.

A-ha! The problem isn’t really school shootings, it is our right to rise up and resist the government!

First off, Vince, if we are going to rise up and resist the corrupt government, I think you should have a look at one of these:

It’s a tank

Our government has a lot of these. Not these specifically. This is a model and I think it’s British. Our government has great big American tanks. A lot of them.

I don’t know what kind of gun you have, Vince, but I don’t think it’ll do much to stop a tank. In fact, if you stood in front of a tank and fired a gun and I stood in front of a tank and didn’t fire at it with my not gun, we’d both still be crushed when it ran us over.

If our government really wants to put you down, Vince, your guns won’t be able to stop them. You know that, right?

But let’s explore the likelihood of our government putting us down. When Clevon Bundy engaged in armed resistance of the government back in 2015 (because he refused to leave land that didn’t belong to him), how many people got killed? Did the government opress the shit out of Bundy or is he still on the land that doesn’t belong to him?

I know that someone will bring up Waco as an example of the government oppressing people with guns and yes, that was a tragedy. Let’s keep in mind that the people following David Koresh were also crazy.

In fact, most abuses of government power are police officers shooting unarmed people who are, frequently, black men. So how do you think the scales will be tipped if those black men were all given guns? It’s their constitutional right!

Will more or less black men die? How about more or less police officers?

Let’s assume that Trayvon Martin had a gun the night he was killed. Let’s further assume it was a firearm he was legally allowed to carry. Let’s further assume that George Zimmerman approached Martin in a threatening manner and Martin shot him in what he believed to be self defense.

My hunch is nobody would be talking about Martin as a champion of the right to bear arms.

What if we armed everyone at the protests in Ferguson last year? Would that have prevented deadly violence? And if a bunch of police, who are representatives of an “oppressive government,” got killed, would we all be talking about how those brave protestors were “taking back our country?”

Honestly, I question how oppressed movie star Vince Vaughn is anyway. I mean, when he talks oppression, I’m assuming he means taxes.

Because he can definitely say anything he wants. He can go virtually anywhere he wants. I guess one could argue being prevented from entering certain rooms in the Pentagon due to national security issues is oppression but how often do movie stars need to do that?

Vince and I can both agree there are things we’d prefer our government didn’t do. We might disagree on what those are but I just don’t feel the boot of the government on my neck. In fact, most Americans don’t. Most Americans spend most of their lives barely dealing with the government.

So I have to assume he is talking about taxes.

Taxes suck. I’d love it if they were lower. We could lower them a ton by slashing the military budget in this country. It would result in fewer tanks, which would make resistance a little bit easier.

All of this is ridiculous.

That’s my point. The pro gun stance is nothing more than a bunch of people who really like guns trying to make excuses for why they like those guns.

So why not just say “I want to have my guns because I really like guns?” And why not admit that when you are talking about everyone’s right to bear arms, you are really talking about your own right to bear arms?

People in most third world countries would laugh at the concept that our government is oppressive. You want to understand oppression? Here’s another picture of a tank.