When I was about 10 years old, I found a copy of Cracked magazine and though it was knee-slapping hilarious (the parts of it I understood, anyway). Unfortunately Cracked seems to still be alive and… well alive anyway, and providing the nutty social commentary that so tickled my adolescent funny-bone lo those many years ago. TTAG reader Pete directed us to the Cracked website and their opus, 7 Incredibly Biased Arguments Against Gun Control by Luke McKinney . . .
I knew I was in for a treat when the very first line thanked me for reading the article. Having read the whole polemic in order to properly fisk it, I can see why he got the thanks in early. If he’d dropped that at the end, most readers wouldn’t get far enough to to receive his gratitude. But let’s set aside the gratuitous insults to get to the meat of Luke’s gratuitous insults cloaked as stupid arguments:
#7. Self-Defense Against Scheduled Rapists
Every time I mention guns I’m sent worryingly detailed descriptions of 10 murderers on their way to rape and kill my family in exactly 10 minutes and asked if I’d like a gun.
If I knew that so much as a single rapist-murderer [too long; hereinafter to be referred to as R-Ms) was on the way to etc., I wouldn’t bother with a gun; the nearest cop shop is less than 10 minutes away, so that’s where the wife and I would direct our feet. Terminator quips aside, a police station really is one of the safest places to be when someone is looking for you with mayhem on their mind.
What Luke conveniently deliberately ignores is those times you are forced to deal with an unscheduled attack; that’s when you want to have access to the safest and most effective self-defense tool in existence. But then he does address it … sort of:
… Because if you don’t sit fondling a gun aimed directly at the front door at all times, [the rapists and murderers are] going to win. And if you do, they can come after you’ve been locked up for killing postal workers.
First, why do so many antis sexualize firearms? I appreciate guns the same way I appreciate any well-crafted item, from musical instruments to automobiles, but I don’t find them erotic any more than I do a handmade hammered dulcimer or a beautifully restored ’64-1/2 Mustang.
Second, most home invaders either ring the doorbell (which is why I always answer the door with a pistol in hand if I’m not expecting visitors) or noisily break-in. Either way, home-carriers almost always have sufficient warning to greet intruders appropriately.
The gun fondlers suffer from what I’m going to call the Gunning-Kruger effect: the idea that they’re much, much better with their weapon than everyone else is.
Ooh, nice riff on the Dunning-Kruger effect, but the fact is that 90+% of defensive gun uses don’t involve shooting; merely showing or referencing the weapon will cause the vast majority of bag guys to flee.
I just realized if I thoroughly debunk each of Lukes “arguments” I’ll have penned a Master’s dissertation, so I’ll deal with the rest briefly….
#6. The Constitution
Writing for a First Amendment protected blog on a Fourth Amendment protected computer, Luke thinks the Second Amendment is as outdated as anti-adultery laws. He also states that “[i]f other technologies enjoyed the same legal stasis as firearms, you could commute in a tank as long as it didn’t shit on the sheriff’s boots,” apparently blissfully unaware of the facts that A) it actually is perfectly legal to own a tank, and if you can make one “street legal” you certainly could drive it to work, and B) tanks are no longer horse-drawn, obviating the whole manure issue.
#5. Hunting
Hunting is a common excuse for the easy sale of long-range killing machines. Skipping lightly over the part where you find people who say, “I enjoy killing things I don’t have to for fun,” and responding, “That sounds perfectly sane, have some rifles,” I’d like to ask: At what point does one person’s hobby overrule another person’s survival?
The same place the right to throw a punch stops; at the end of someone else’s nose. But when you write things like:
I’m omnivorous … but if I loved meat any harder they’d make horror movies about me. I love the taste of meat, my body is made of meat, and my only moral objection to cannibalism is that going to jail would reduce my net flesh consumption. I once chewed through a lamb’s face.
then you can just get the hell off your high moral horse about hunting.
#4. Drunk Driving
Every time you talk about all the gun murders … some asshole asks, “So should we ban cars because of drunk driving?”
Actually I think they probably ask something along the lines of, “So if guns cause murders then do cars cause drunk driving?” But that wouldn’t be nearly as easy a strawman to knock down. Luke goes on (and on) about how cars are for travelling and guns are just for killing (Really? Then why do cops keep statistics about arrests and convictions and not just killings?) He completely ignores the fact that DGUs save twice as many lives as are taken in CGUs.
#3. Knives Are Just As Bad!
… The thing about knives is that they have countless nonlethal intended uses, and they’re just chunks of metal, which can’t jump out and kill you. Making them the opposite of bullets. …
And there you have it; guns are bad because they can jump out and kill you.
After the deep thought Like invested inin #3, I can’t summon the strength to deal with numbers 2 and 1 because, to quote the great Ron White, you can’t fix stupid.