Carnes: Continue regulating lawn darts, please
One unknown idiot puts poison in a pill bottle, killing seven, and we’ve spent the last four decades constantly struggling to open pill bottles due to government-imposed regulations.
One religious fanatic with a bomb in his shoe, and we’ve spent the last two decades making sure our socks are clean before each flight due to government-imposed regulations.
Three children die from playing improperly with lawn darts (who’d a thunk), and the government imposes a ban on future sales. They were compelled to reissue the ban 10 years later.
Yes, even lawn darts became a weapon in the wrong hands. If only we could have taught those kids proper lawn dart etiquette, perhaps we’d still be able to spend sunny summer afternoons with the family out on the lawn, happily tossing foot-long, sharp metal projectiles in each other’s general direction for points.
Ah, the good ol’ days.
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Those evil government types step in each time, prompted by public outrage, forcing change through regulation in order to save us from ourselves.
They regulated us from purchasing two boxes of original Sudafed in 2006 because it could be used to cook meth, made lead illegal in gas and paint to significantly reduce lead poisoning, regulated radium on watch hands to drastically reduce jawbone cancers and forced us to put sneeze guards over salad bars.
Seat belts and airbags don’t stop cars from killing people — it’s drunk or distracted drivers that do. But following the logic of those stuck in a continual loop of cognitive dissonance shouting that with no guns available, cars would still be killing people, therefore regulating weapons is somehow not the issue.
Maybe it’s just me, but I have it on good authority cars are not designed with the specific intent to kill, yet they’re still regulated, but not as much as lawn darts of course.
Over 200 mass shootings so far in 2022, 27 of them involving schools, killing over 250 with over 1,000 injured, and a segment of those same evil government types hide in their respective political closets, too afraid of actual regulation for fear of public ridicule from a vocal minority.
In other words, fear of not being reelected.
It’s ironic that for any Republican having the courage to speak out for any level of gun regulation is political suicide while each school shooting is carried out by individuals intent on eventually committing suicide.
Coincidence?
Like those strapping on heat to pick up their daily latte at Starbucks, cowards all.
Where are the local letters defending the position that doing nothing is the best response?
Here in Happy Valley one must be at least 21 to buy cigarettes, alcohol or a handgun, but at 18 and still dating Suzy in high school can purchase a semi-automatic weapon.
For those who cannot see the Second Amendment forest for all the trees of indifference, insisting on a right without acknowledging the accompanying responsibilities is not freedom, it’s adolescence.
While I agree it’s not the AR-15 or the handgun ultimately responsible for the murders, easy access to either is the actual issue, and this is what needs to be regulated.
Guns ain’t lawn darts.
Richard Carnes, of Avon, writes weekly. He can be reached at poor@vail.net.