Loving Arms
By Robert D. Kirvel
I am writing my Congressman for the first time because he needs to understand the most important thing in my life. It’s not money or sex. With all due respect, he can keep his kickbacks and Italian cars and fast women. I only need my arms, but first a person needs to define his terms. That’s where history helps.
When the Indians told Lewis and Clark to watch out for bears (native people didn’t realize they are called grizzlies like we know today), the explorers snickered and killed their first griz with one shot. Thump on the ground. “What’s all the hoopla?” they winked, seeing no problem with killing a big bear because President Jefferson gave them the right to bear arms, and they took their bear arms wherever they went. Good thing because a worse grizzly came along and kept coming at them despite several shots until somebody had to jump off a cliff to get away. True story. They kept shooting until they got their bear, but without the right to bear arms how could they wipe out the bears, or how could troops kill all the Indians during the uprisings? Every pioneer would be dead. So that’s what arms are, whatever works in a situation to defend yourself and put things right. If a handgun works, that’s a person’s arms. If an Uzi is needed, so be it, or my AK47.
Some people want to draw an artificial line. For arms control I say go ahead and limit those nuclear weapons in the Mideast and Africa because fanatics live there, but I’m a citizen of the United States of America, which God has blessed, and I can have my arms because Amendment 2 says. Now in a crowded movie or building where a maniac starts shooting people, naturally a bomb won’t work, but if everybody has guns then maybe a dozen people shoot back. Goodbye shooter. Same thing for schools or street situations where everybody standing around shoots the shooter. Can’t miss. That’s how it works in the Constitution because our forefathers understood today’s reality.
Goons traipsing around today are robbing people blind. Someone sees an illegal criminal with an automatic hiding under a hoodie, and he’s got a situation and maybe he needs to shoot the guy period. How else does a man protect his family? Any analyst will tell you. I’ve talked to them.
Folks gripe how more people are killed in this country than in all the wars. Count the deaths from the Revolution and Civil War, World War I and II, and Vietnam and all, and it’s twice the number killed at home by guns than over there in wars, but here’s the question: Is that a bad thing? Take those punks shooting each other in the big cities. Where would they be if they weren’t dead? In prison mostly, and that’s a fact. How much does it cost to keep them in prison? Twice as much as putting them in college. So bang, they shoot each other on the street and taxpayers don’t shell out for prison and can send their kids to college.
Here’s another argument nobody can deny. Guns are popular for old people when things get bad. Look it up. I have a friend whose dad is 92 years old. The old guy still reads a newspaper with his oatmeal, only now the morning paper is upside-down on the table. Dementia. My friend had to put him in a home. After a year, he figured how much it cost the old man. Hospice nursing came to $120K, the residential home another $48K, medical bills $30K, and he needed radiation to boot. The total comes to $200K every single year. Put the cash in one hand and a bullet in the other, and the choice is a no brainer. Bam. Money in the bank. Take his guns and he’s a criminal for using one, or he’s $200K in debt for not. No sir, I don’t think so.
Teddy Roosevelt didn’t trust people who did not hunt. He was the President, and he wasn’t talking bows and arrows. In the olden days there weren’t any supermarkets with lunchmeat, so how do you think they got their sandwiches? When I was six, my uncle put a .38 in my hand and said squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk. The recoil knocked me back, but I almost got a squirrel. Now I love shooting but I learned squeezing my gun beats jerking it any day. I have thought long and hard about being like any other red-blooded American man engorged with certain unalienable endowments, but I can’t always show it in public. What I can do is kill something with wings or claws like before with passenger pigeons for target practice, or now with buffaloes to mount their heads on a wall to show people. Did not our maker create superior creatures to reign over inferior, predator over prey? What good is a buffalo on the prairie chewing grass meant for cows and pigs? Take away the right of one of God’s creatures and you strip a man of his manliness. Natural selection I say; live and let live.
It’s never been proven when you take away guns that gun violence goes down other than in airports and courtrooms or prison or hospitals that don’t have guns. Science says you can’t prove a negative. If arms are outlawed, only outlaws will have arms, then how can troubled teens who like guns channel themselves? How can law-abiding citizens hunt and shoot them—illegal punks and fence-jumping aliens I mean, or psychos on a rampage? Don’t make me an outlaw.
It’s not like NRA people are making a killing with more guns. They are foot soldiers protecting Amendment 2 for every honest citizen with inbred rights to buy another gun to kill a terrorist or buffalo or overthrow the government, whatever is needed. Trust a patriot to recognize his natural endowments and how to defeat lame opinions out there. Guaranteed.
About the author:
Robert D.Kirvel has a Ph.D. in neuropsychology. He has authored numerous publications inpeer-reviewed journals and anthologies, received awards of excellence from the Society for Technical Communications, and has been recognized by the Executive Office of the President of the United States for contributions in writing a guidance document. He now writes literary fiction and has published recent stories in American Athenaeum, Columbia College Literary Review, The Blotter, The Milo Review, and Gravel.
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Ali Saul
Ali is a Law undergraduate at the University of Portsmouth with an especial interest in Constitutional Law. He is a keen musician playing mandolin, guitar, drums and keyboards. He also enjoys writing music and poetry.
