He Who Dies With the Most Toys in His Cold, Dead Hands Wins

The death of an instructor at a Nevada shooting range at the hands of a nine-year-old girl is the perfect example of what the Gun Cult is all about.

It's not about protecting our Second Amendment rights, or defending ourselves from a tyrannical government. It's about the toys.

When Barack Obama was elected president the Gun Cult ran around shrilly screaming that Obama was going to take their guns away from them, like nine-year-old girls afraid their parents were taking away their Barbies.

Guns are weapons. Tools of particular trades: hunting, policing, national defense. It is sheer folly that this poor girl's parents, the instructor, the shooting range owner and the state legislature allows and encourages children to play with fully automatic weapons as if they were toys.

It's clear that many in the Gun Cult think of guns as toys from the way they leave them lying around their houses where children can get them. Or the way they think it's perfectly safe to take them into public places, where they can fall out of their purses and pockets and shoot themselves and others. Or the way they show them off to each other at parties where everyone is drinking.

Would these parents have placed a jackhammer in this girl's hands? Would they let her use an electric drill that was too heavy for her to properly control? Or operate a table saw? Or light birthday candles with a propane torch? Maybe. But probably not, because those tools aren't fun.

In a culture where hunting is common, you can argue that responsible children should be taught how to properly handle weapons at an early age to instill the proper respect and care for weapons. To that end my dad gave my 11-year-old nephew my grandfather's ancient bolt-action .22 caliber rifle. It's a long weapon with minimal recoil.

If the nine-year-old girl in Nevada had been using such a rifle, that instructor would almost certainly be alive today. Even if she couldn't handle the weapon's kick, she couldn't accidentally get a second shot off.

But her parents wanted their spindly nine-year-old to fire a fully automatic Uzi because it's fun!

The Gun Cult rejects reasonable gun laws not because they're protecting their rights, but because the Government is a bunch of big meanies who want to take away their fun.