The Enchanted Dagger

Look out!  She’s got a gun!  Another timely episode of the Enchanted Dagger, as this page posts a week after yet another massacre by yet another gun toting idiot.  We haven’t seen any guns in the EDag to this point (okay…I guess Trigger Slum does have that gun barrel index finger, but who knows if that things really works…).  When it comes to guns in comic books and TV shows and Movies and even video games…hey, I’m all for ’em.  “Die Hard” is my favorite X-mas movie.  14 year old Greg’s favorite comic was “The Punisher.”  Contemporaneously aged Greg would be terribly distressed if a vigilante murdered his pot dealer with a ballistic knife.  As we grow up, we put away our childish action figures and Legos and become comic book artists.

It is abundantly clear that the “Right to Bear Arms” is a privilege that the American people have proven themselves unworthy of.  This nation should stop being afraid long enough to be ashamed of itself.

The illusion of safety that possessing a gun affords a person is shattered when faced with the unassailable fact that in countries that prohibit guns there are few to no gun deaths.  (Japan – 200,000,000 people ~ 88 gun deaths in 2012; Great Britain – 66,000,000 people ~ 12 gun deaths in 2012.  Twelve!)

Our collective political fear of the civil strife that will be instigated by the NRA/Gun Industry/Domestic Terrorist agenda notwithstanding, it is time for people of good conscience to recognize that the only solution to the gun crisis is to begin the long process of taking people’s guns away.  Do we need to pry them from your cold dead hands?  That can be arranged.

Firstly, we repeal the Second Amendment.  That will place the onus of gun rights in the hands of the individual states until a new, reformed and socially responsible posture can be organized on the federal level.  If at this time, California and Massachusetts want to ban guns altogether, more power to them.

Recognizing the importance of the gun culture to certain, intellectually depleted communities, there will be some recourse to these overgrown children in the new federal statue.

In keeping with our gun-slinging traditions and in the name of egalitarian democracy, each person in a state that allows them will be allowed to keep in their homes two six shooter revolvers for their personal defense.

If you are convicted of a crime, have a DUI, owe taxes, owe child support, you lose your privilege.

A citizen will also be allowed to own a bolt action hunting rifle and a shotgun, also for hunting.

That will be the extent of the weaponry allowed for a person’s immediate use.

This is because of of the thousands and thousands of Americans murdered every year with guns.

The rest of the guns with be collected in the spirit of forming a “well regulated militia.”  A non-governmental organization will be formed, comprised of veterans, first responders and fraternal orders to maintain a system of arsenals for each state.

Each citizen will be required to declare their guns and be prepared to turn them over to the Arsenal for proper storage in anticipation of a time when they might be needed for the defense of the nation.

These guns will be assessed for their usefulness.  Issues of weapons that are not useful to the commonweal will be reduced in their number and archived as museum pieces.  The determination of whether an individual’s declared weapon is to be among those destroyed will be determined by lot.  There will be exemptions for weapons of historical, heirloom value and a process to have your great-grand pappy’s Winchester duly appreciated.  Weapons thusly stored in the local arsenal will, while technically in the custody of the state, continue to be maintained in the name of its declaring owner.

Large capacity rifles determined to be Assault weapons, useful in war, and semi-automatic handguns will be available at the arsenal, for people to test and fire but will not be allowed off the premises on a routine basis.  Exemptions will be made for active duty soldiers, veterans and police.

Citizens who have registered semi-automatic rifles which adhere to the form of traditional hunting rifles will be permitted to check them out from the arsenal for responsible purpose, as one would check out a library book.

Sporting clubs will operate in concert with this new institution.

Individuals with legal issues as noted above will loses this privilege.

If, under this formula, you are caught with an unregistered weapon, you will lose your privileges for a good long time.  Commit a crime with one, you lose it for life.

I’m sure, that if people of good conscience agree to follow this regime, the American people will be able to avoid the dreaded imposition of federal troops storming through their doors to seize their pee-shooters.  Sorry, your “Commando Shoot Out In The Mall Food Court/Last Stand/Alamo/wet-dream” is going to have to die with those kids at Parkland High School.

Also ending will be private gun sales (forfeit your rights) and gun shows.

The gun industry will suffer greatly for all this but there is no avoiding it.  Individuals involved in and benefiting economically from the sale of guns should prepare accordingly and diversify their investments.

Gun’s are the weapon of the day and there is a great and unfortunate need for them.  There is no shame in using them for hunting or for sport or for self defense or for the defense of our nation.  Many of them, such as the AR-15, and the AK-47, have an aesthetic value as items of Arte-d-Objet which places them among the ranks of some of the finest weapons ever devised.  They’re up there with the Samurai Sword.

Those who take issue with these notions should ask themselves if they would prefer to hand over their guns or hand over the lives of their children.  Innocent families are ruined every day by not having that choice and their loss hinges on your foolish, irresponsible, anti-social and, as the tables turn, un-American intractability.  Did Christ bear the weapons of war, you Viper?