Remarkable verbal pirouettes from gun-ban advocate Mark Kelly:
Obviously Glenn Reynolds is right about this. Kelly bought the guns for the same reasons so many other people are buying guns. No other explanation makes sense. He expected to do it without anyone noticing, and now that he’s been called out he’s appearing in friendly media to try to minimize damage to the cause. We won’t believe him but surely some people will, perhaps the same kinds of people who believe gun bans reduce crime.
(Via Breitbart.)
UPDATE (March 14): Whoops!
Long ago in China the ruling class banned knives. No one, except the ruling class and their servants, could have a knife. Next they banned spoons because people sharpened the handles and the bowls to make weapons. And they banned forks, of course.
“Let the people eat with sticks made of cheap wood” they ordered. “and make sure both ends are blunt and not pointy”.
And so the chinese (but not the ruling class) eat with blunt sticks. And they have no weapons to defend themselves. And of course guns were banned when they were invented.
Nevertheless, they still have the same number of murders as we do.
What a tool. No, sir, you are anything but a “strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment”. Bleah.
grey eagle Says:
March 13th, 2013 at 10:54 pm
A good illustrative fable, but still a fable. The dynasty that banned weapons, and only allowed one knife for cooking shared between 5 families, was the Chin. A thoroughgoing dictatorship if there ever was one. Spoons were carved soft wood, or porcelain, neither making good weapons. And we Chinese did not do forks.
I have often noted that if we Chinese had developed the limited liability corporation; y’all would be eating with chopsticks now.
However, there is a truth behind the fable that may apply today. Chin Shih Huang-ti, who founded the dynasty, died and was buried in the tomb with the terracotta soldiers to guard him through eternity. Those thousands of terracotta soldiers held real weapons; swords, bows, pikes, etc.
His son, Chin Er Huang-ti was just as much of a tyrant as dad, but far less competent at it. He provoked the first peasant rebellion that changed dynasties. The version of the legend I was taught was that messages to organize the rebellion were baked into the Moon Cakes exchanged between families during Harvest Moon Festival. On a set day those with cooking knives gathered and killed individual soldiers and armed themselves with their weapons. As the growing rebel forces approached the Imperial capitol, they came to the Chin Tomb. Have you noticed that a) the terracotta soldiers were found without weapons, and b) the outer chambers of the tomb are burned? The peasant army that became the Han dynasty was armed with weapons taken from the government.
Something to think about as the times become interesting.
Subotai Bahadur