Friday, January 21, 2011

A Great Article on Handguns

Sometimes you come by an article that's so well-written, so powerful, passionate and intelligent that you just have to keep a piece of it around to remind you what good writing is about. Tom Carter (who disagrees with me more than any other person I know aside from my husband) writes about the necessity of a ban on handguns:
Okay, I’m a realist. I know the public won’t support a federal handgun ban, and I know politicians won’t do it anyway. We’ll continue to see suburban wannabe cowboy heroes with ersatz phalluses strapped to their waists as they shop at Wal-Mart on the weekends. We’ll continue to have people with handguns at home, thinking wrongly that they’re the best weapons for home defense. We’ll continue to have delusional conspiracy theorists armed to the teeth, ready to take on the forces of the NWO when they land their black helicopters in the neighborhood, led by none other than the Antichrist himself. And criminals will continue to prey on us with handguns. Worst of all, we’ll continue to see crazies murdering innocents with perfectly legal handguns. Fine, we can’t outlaw handguns. I get it. But how about banning high-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds so we can’t be murdered so quickly and efficiently? No? I figured as much.
Irrespective of whether you agree with his views (which I definitely do in this case), you have to recognize that this is very good writing. Many people believe that reading things on-line is necessarily detrimental to the verbal skills of teenagers and young adults. This doesn't have to be true because there is a lot of really good writing on the Internet. You just have to find it.

7 comments:

David said...

At the very least this is a good argument for more restrictions to be placed on firearms in general - even if it doesn't mean an outright ban.

I get it when someone says they want to go hunting. I don't get it when they say they want to do it with an ak-47.

Clarissa said...

"I get it when someone says they want to go hunting. I don't get it when they say they want to do it with an ak-47."

-Exactly!

Anonymous said...

This comic strip comes closest to describing my feelings on this subject:

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2011/01/10/this_modern_world/story.jpg

Stringer

P.S. Love the 'random posts' widget.

Clarissa said...

Thank you, Stringer.

I chose the computer you suggested for the grant proposal. Your help is very much appreciated. :-)

Anonymous said...

You keep strange hours!

Which one was that? Hope it works out.

Stringer

Clarissa said...

Stayed up watching old Russian movies. These are the best movies in the world, which I can't share with the readers because they don't have English subtitles.

If I get that new computer, I'll be able to blog a lot more. So we all win. :-) :-)

Tom Carter said...

Thanks, Clarissa! (I'm blushing....)

Speaking of Russian movies...the first I ever saw was Капитанская дочка (The Captain's Daughter). After that, I was hooked on Russian movies. Movies on TV in Moscow were fun--either Russian movies with English subtitles or vice-versa. Sometimes the best part of watching them were the hilarious translation errors.