A member of our Armed Intelligentsia sent me a link to this Sunday’s Doonesbury comic. In subsequent panels, our coffee house hero responds to the challenge to his manhood by revealing that he “spent two years behind an M60 machine gun defending, among other things, your right to be a moron about guns.” This technicolor interchange is wrong on so many levels. Well, at least three . . .
1. People who carry guns are not “yahoos”
America’s liberal elite holds this truth to be self-evident: the average American is stupid. Too stupid to be taken seriously. Anyone from the right who pretends to represent them is also a moron. George Bush. Need I say more? Sarah Palin.
When Gary Trudeau’s proxy insults the open carry advocates in this strip as “yahoos,” she is well within the proud traditional of liberal condescension, which extends to gun ownership. As we’ve said here many times, the gun-grabbing elite believe the average American is too stupid and emotionally immature to own, never mind carry, a gun.
While there are plenty of irresponsible people with guns—just as there are irresponsible people who drive automobiles—they are a small minority of firearms owners. We can argue stats until the cows come home. Suffice it to say, calling someone a “yahoo”, unbidden, in a public venue, simply for exercising their Second Amendment right is an excellent example of emotionally immaturity.
2. Gun owners are not compensating for a small penis
When it comes to measuring virility, it’s testicle size, not penis size. Second, I’ve never heard ANY gun owner challenge a man’s manhood for NOT carrying or firing a weapon. This is a liberal fantasy that relates to the “Can you squeal like a pig?” scene in Deliverance. This alleged connection between gun ownership and sexual insecurity is inextricably linked to the “gun owners are stupid” meme.
Third, I have heard people talk about penis size and gun ownership: gun control advocates. JadeGold, a commentator banned from this site, has made that assertion many times. The funny thing: Freud said that the lack of a gun indicated feelings of sexual inadequacy. I disagree with that and everything else Freud said, but point taken. So to speak.
3. Open Carry advocates are not bullies
Following on from the above, it’s important to note that open carry (OC) advocates want to have the choice whether or not to carry in public. Trudeau’s mischaracterization—that OC’s proponents believe that everyone should carry—mistakes their belief in individual gun rights for a desire for liberal-like social engineering.
Liberals squawk about “their right not to have to be threatened by private citizens’ guns in public.” That’s empty rhetoric. They do, however, have the right to propose a constitutional amendment that eliminates Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. When you’re ready . . .
The final panels of this episode show the OC advocates giving the vet props for his service and his prowess with a really big gun. Ironically enough, the punchline plays into the fantasy of guns = manhood. Which shows you who’s obsessed with penis size in this debate.