"Kill the gun culture," say the historically-ignorant. Are the anti-gun zealots aware of the fact that the M1 Rifle killed more human beings than all the handguns ever in existence? That rifle was built from scrap parts, in an American prison, by a convict imprisoned for murder. Didn't these paranoids ever see the movie Carbine Williams with Jimmy Stewart?

In the re-make of Last of the Mohicans, the efficaciously powerful and individualistic frontiersman, Hawkeye (not the Alan Alda wimp from MASH), having the temerity to question the colonial government's actions and "concern" for the safety of the community, is asked by a typical Statist functionary: "Aren't you a loyal subject of the Crown?"

Hawkeye replied: "I'm not subject to much of anything at all."

What made his assertion possible was the fact that at the time he uttered that statement, he was leaning on his long rifle.

Today, however, our political betters have signed on for the responsibility of "taking care " of us (and don't ya feel safer now?); and all they ask in return is that we surrender all the devices they seek to employ unilaterally ... and that we are loyal to whatever THEY want to do with our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. But, have you observed, that when danger threatens YOU and your family, the Cops are always someplace else, clogging the donut shops or otherwise "out to lunch "? The fascist Gauleiters of the super-state may not like it, but the absolute right of the individual citizen to protect himself, his family and the wider community is not obviated by the absence of the constabulary. In fact, it is enhanced under those conditions.

In Shane, arguably the greatest Western film, Alan Ladd pointed out to Jean Arthur (and others could learn from his advice as well) that:

"a gun is a tool, no better and no worse than an axe or any other tool; a gun is as good as the man using it."

Today it is considered too dangerous for law-abiding citizens to own a gun never used in an offense, but it is apparently viewed as not too dangerous to release convicted child molesters, rapists and murderers into a largely disarmed community. After a recent child murder in California, we were informed that 400,000 perverts are listed on a government "sex register" in that state ALONE. It is not too difficult to imagine sundry Australian state governments releasing funnel-web spiders and crocodiles into our cities; while whispering sweet nothings into our ears that there is nothing to worry about -- because each creature is on a register somewhere.

In the 1945 film, Mildred Pierce, Ann Blyth shoots Zachary Scott; then turns to Joan Crawford and says:

"The gun kept going off over and over again!"

Sure, cars are leaving garages and attacking people in the street; lawnmowers are making sexual advances; cameras are taking pictures without permission; can-openers are opening all the tin goods in your cupboard ... and guns keep going off "over and over again," even though we know the trigger does Not pull the finger.

People acquire firearms for the same reason they have created a growing industry of private security and alarm systems. Government is quite simply not doing its primary function of protecting life, liberty and property. Permit me to cite some examples here in recently disarmed Australia.

An elderly woman is murdered by an illegal immigrant -- smothered to death with a pillow (thank goodness it wasn't from a gun). An old Digger in Brisbane, who was trustworthy enough to be issued a bren-gun in WWII, when such weapons were not viewed with distaste by fastidious types, is murdered by a 14-year-old "disadvantaged " minority youth recently escaped from a government "secure facility." The murder weapon: a knife (thank goodness it wasn't a gun).

A baby is snatched from the bedroom of her deaf parents, by a monster with a bus ticket in his hand provided by Queensland welfare, to enable this disadvantaged youth to visit his family; sent to his deadly destination by the same type bureaucrats who have been given the responsibility for "controlling " firearms -- which are permitted to farmers to control pests, but absolutely denied for personal protection in Australia. The young baby above had her head crushed by being slung against walls and on the ground; and the innocent little creature's internal organs were ripped apart by traumatic sexual assault (oh, thank goodness the atrocity was not facilitated by a gun).

Considering the manifest failure of the Immigration Department, the Prisons System and Queensland Welfare to protect vulnerable victims, what would convince a rational person that when the chips are down, in the still of the night, Big Brother will be there to protect him and his?

Incidentally, the monster who destroyed the baby above, little Katie Beveridge, was "turned on" by the Child's Play movie; just like the two 10-year-old monsters who murdered little James Bolger in Liverpool, England (they are now "released" and wandering around with secret identities somewhere in Britain; perhaps one of them will soon ask some unsuspecting girl out on a date some evening). And the largest mass murderer with firearms in history, anywhere, Martin Bryant, who murdered 35 at Port Arthur, Tasmania, was a fan of the identical film. A connection as well established as Clockwork Orange in copycat crime -- or the relationship of The Protocols of Zion and Mein Kampf to Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

All these ghastly cultural influences serving as the modus operandi, the training manual for these monsters. This depraved imagery -- and the societal saturation from heaps of other cultural forms are the real "smoking gun" which our political lightweights have ignored as they go after the "usual suspects" and "straw man" target represented by a responsible citizenry.

Of course, governments do, indeed, police and regulate those who might legally possess firearms more than they do guns in the hands of violent criminals -- it's easier! Governments can't stop violence, so they go after those who CAN. To be seen to be doing "Something" they have decided to beat up on inanimate objects; disarming the honest and the brave while doing little against the criminals and crazies. What a primitive mindset; a bit like blaming the pot for burning the beans.

Chuck Brooks is a former Hawaii resident who now works an Educator/Radio Talk Host in Queensland, Australia. Reach him at mailto:chuckbrooks1@hotmail.com

HawaiiReporter.com reports the real news, and prints all editorials submitted, even if they do not represent the viewpoint of the editors, as long as they are written clearly. Send editorials to mailto:Malia@HawaiiReporter.com

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