Safety Testing
The California legislature has recently come to the startling
conclusion that guns may be dangerous. This revelation has come about after
much pondering, by liberals, regarding what the electorate will be willing
to tolerate, and upon the gullibility of the average citizen, in regards to
gun legislation. This is right up there, with the remarkable discovery made
back in the sixties, also by liberals, that war can be unpleasant, and even
lethal. Those of us, who are conservative, should express our gratitude to
our liberal friends, for pointing these things out to us.
Of course, no liberal can look at a problem, or at an
unpleasant, or unpopular situation, without immediately fumbling around for
a piece of legislation with which to combat it. Often these proposals include
something, which is vaguely referred to as “education”, and generally involves
the employment of vast armies of liberals to implement. Fortunately for us,
the liberals have decided that they want nothing, whatsoever to do with firearms,
and have instituted no education program in their use. This initiative not
to educate the public in the correct use of firearms has been pursued to the
extent that many schools, summer camps, and youth organizations, which had
once offered firearms training, have been discouraged from doing so. Considering
what public education has done for the intellectual development of
this nation, in the thirty years since the liberals have taken control, this
may be a good thing. The rates of accidental injury, and careless use of
firearms, have dropped sharply, in the last thirty years or so. I suspect
that this would not have been the case, had public gun education been implemented
by the same people who have been running the rest of public education.
Though the gun owning public may have been saved from
the good intentioned support of the liberals, we have certainly not been spared
the efforts of their opposition. Unable to directly oppose the Second Amendment,
and ban guns on principle, in all but the most rabidly liberal places, the
opponents of firearms ownership, have taken several different tacks. The
first method employed was the attempt to have firearms declared a health
threat. This was so transparent, that virtually no one took it seriously,
and it seems to have faded away. Then there were the attempts to sue gun manufacturers,
which seemed to be a real threat, but which have become more difficult to
implement.
Some of the less enlightened, or at any rate less principled
members of the California legislature have decided that handguns should be
safety tested. This is claimed to be no different than the safety testing
of automobiles, television sets, furnaces, and other potentially dangerous
products; it is also a lie. Furnaces are not supposed to blow up, cars are
not supposed to crash, and hair dryers are not supposed to be used in the
shower. Guns, on the other hand, are supposed to discharge projectiles, which,
to the horror of those infected with liberalism, are meant to be dangerous.
I could go on, for pages, about the foolishness of this, and about the differences
between the use of firearms, and the common uses to which most other consumer
good are put, but common sense has had little to do with most firearms legislation
over the past thirty five years or so. In truth, most firearms legislation
is primarily meant to inconvenience gun owners, and to make gun ownership
as expensive, difficult, and unpleasant as possible. This is meant to deter
the ownership of guns, and is justified under the theory that guns are evil,
and so even bad legislation of them is a good thing. This “end justifies the
means” type of reasoning is not uncommon among dictators, religious fanatics,
racists, and criminals. It is also, unfortunately, not uncommon amongst liberals,
and is becoming all too common in those employed to represent us in the government.
The safety testing of a particular handgun will, if the
gun passes, permit the manufacturer to sell it in California. The gun will
be added to a list of “approved” weapons. Naturally, a fee is charged for
this. It can be assumed that this fee might be raised in the future, with
predictable effects upon the prices of guns, and upon the entrance of smaller,
or more specialized manufacturers into the market. One of the tests required
is a drop test, in which a loaded and cocked pistol is dropped from six feet,
onto concrete. I can only say that the thought of such a thing happening to
one of my own pistols makes me cringe. Only the most foolish, careless, and
ridiculous person would allow such a thing to happen, which may be why the
anti gun left considers this to be a valid test. For safety testing, a drop
of six feet could turn anything weighting more than a few pounds into a dangerous
object. Though it will not discharge a projectile, a brick dropped from six
feet could certainly be adjudged to be a dangerous consumer item, lethal
to the head, and painful to the foot.
I was, frankly, a bit skeptical about the idea of drop
testing pistols, but I am beginning to see this as a step towards some much
needed safety testing of something which is considerably more dangerous. Most
pistols are less that a foot long, and weight, at most, a few pounds. The
California proposal to drop them from six feet, should be taken as a baseline,
from which to develop safety tests for other threats to our well being. I
propose that we start to drop test (for safety certification) California legislators.
In the interests of fairness, we should only drop test those, who are in
favor of drop testing firearms. In consideration of the size, and weight
of the average legislator, compared to that of the average handgun, I propose
that these drop tests be made from a height of between thirty, and forty
feet. In the same manner as the pistol drop tests, many legislators may need
to be drop tested several times, before a considered judgment of their safety
features can be rendered.
I suspect that this type of drop testing will become
a very popular procedure with most of the electorate. If it receives enough
support, we may wish to extend the testing process to the legislatures of
other states, and even to that of the federal government itself. If such a
program were instituted, I confidently predict that the nation would become
a much safer, and better place to live, and that the quality of life will
improve tremendously. If I am incorrect, it is still worth trying, even if
it will save the life of only one child.