Jovan Belcher, Bob Costas, and the Relentless Push for Control

It was said by the Godfather himself in 2008 not to let a good crisis go to waste, and sure enough, not even 48 hours after the aforementioned Kansas City Chiefs quarterback murdered his wife before committing suicide in front of Arrowhead Stadium, Bob Costas decided to use his 90 seconds of halftime commentary on Sunday, December 2nd, to regurgitate a line from FOX Sports columnist Jason Whitlock and removed any doubt that just because he works at the sports desk doesn't mean he doesn't have a political viewpoint.

“[I]f Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun," Costas and Whitlock opined, "he and Kasandra Perkins [Belcher's girlfriend] would both be alive today.”  Maybe, maybe not.  The mere fact that Belcher possessed the firearm does not mean it turned the 25-year-old sports star into an emotionless, murdering beast who was hell-bent on death and destruction, damn the consequences.

Of all the gun-control excuses and mantras I've heard (and I live in California, so I've heard a lot of them), this one is the most egregious.  In the same way that buying a ball-peen hammer does not immediately grant a person the title of Blacksmith, and purchasing a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 does not make one a sponsored NASCAR driver, buying a firearm does not change the psychological mindset of the purchaser.  Placing your hands on the grip of a Glock pistol does not release evil voodoo magicks that seep into one's skin, make their way up through the central nervous system into the brain, and begin making new nerve connections that make you hear voices that say "Kill" every waking moment of your life.  The way that some of these anti-gun crusaders spin these stories, you would think that even thinking of owning a firearm makes the average person start foaming at the mouth and begin speaking in tongues.

For these crusaders, the Second Amendment is simply a mistake, a quaint notion from a long-gone era, a blight on modern "civilized" society that is so enlightened it doesn't want or need this amendment anymore and is all but ready to lower that big black Sharpie on that sacred document and strike those horrible twenty-seven words out, once and for all.  There's a problem with that approach, however: the definitions of "need" and "want" seem to have been blurred somewhere along the line.  Certain needs and wants have come and gone as quickly as the wind changes direction.

The Bill of Rights defines certain freedoms that the American people recognize as being naturally inherent to every man, woman, and child in a free and polite society.  It is not a codified list of certain privileges that the State can sort through and cherry-pick to fit into some sort of popular mindset or current agenda.  The recent trend that government has been doing is trying to get into every single part of your life as it can.  The federal government is increasingly telling you how much of your money you should keep; what to spend your money on; how to eat; who you can and can't love; what kind of healthcare you should have; what kind of car you should drive; what kind of lightbulbs you can have in your home; whether you can or can't own and/or carry a gun; what you should or shouldn't put into your body.  The list goes on and on ad nauseam, and it's even almost getting to the point where the Tenth Amendment is being stepped over to have this kind of power grab to override state legislation.

I've modified this political comic of Standard Oil to reflect modern times, but it reflects what I'm seeing in Washington, D.C. today, and the resemblance is uncanny.  (Click to enlarge)

The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting, benchrest shooting, or public safety.  Gun control is "feel-good" legislation: it sounds warm and fuzzy because it uses hot-button words designed to evoke certain imagery in the minds of gullible people, and it twists and manipulates the truth to something utterly unrecognizable to someone who is actually informed and makes valid decisions.  The mainstream media have been experts in wordsmithing the gun-control agenda by churning out soundbites like "high-powered rifle" and the all-time favorite "semi-automatic assault weapon".  It's full of so many contradictions it makes me want to vomit.  The anti-gun crusaders care nothing about how a firearm works internally: to them, if it looks like an AK, if it sounds like an AK, it's an AK and we don't like it.  And just because they don't like it means you can't have it, no ifs, ands, or buts.

One more issue that really frosts my butt about this.  The fact that some overpaid and underworked bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. that I didn't vote for, who I haven't met and never will, has the gall, the cheek, the sheer effrontery to think that they are so enlightened over me that it is their divine right to determine what is best for me and my life, and any interference by me over my own affairs is considered sedition and high treason.  This politician (I'm not naming names, but you know who you are) knows nothing about me, my neighborhood, or my specific needs and concerns, but writes and passes legislation on emotion and feeling alone, not on logic, common sense, or reason.  They pass legislation that says I cannot own a gun to protect myself or my family from criminals, while they get the luxury of round-the-clock bodyguards with body armor and submachine guns.

Are Senators Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, and Charles Schumer really losing sleep over some guy in Idaho who owns an AR15-style semiautomatic rifle that sits in the backyard every Saturday and shoots old soup cans?  I don't think so.  Guns are not the problem, government is.  Throw them all out and start anew.  I have a slew of other opinions about government, but those are for another blog post.

This post is dedicated to the three-month-old baby girl whose parents were unexpectedly taken from her due to circumstances that we may never know about.  Broken wings mend in time.