Monday, November 24, 2014

It's a GUN, Not a Condom 1 - it can't "protect" you from anything

I always want to laugh when people say "I want a gun for protection," or "to protect my family."

It's not a condom, people. It's not a shield. It's not armor plating. It's only function is to propel small objects at extremely high speeds with the intention of causing the death of something on the other end.

If someone swings a baseball bat at you, maybe you can use the gun to block the bat, at which point it qualifies as "protection."

I saw a superbowl commercial that was banned and so only online. The buildup was a guy driving home to his house, with the voiceover talking about "guarding his family," and "keeping them safe," all while he was not in the house.

So the buildup is to something like ADT home monitoring, which alarms if someone breaks a window, and sends police or paramedics to the panic button. "Protection," right?

The punchline was the advert was for an assault rifle. Yeah, that will "protect" when dudebro is at work, or if mom slips and bangs her head and Little Billy tries to press the "summon help" button on the assuault rifle. So many reasons that one was banned from television, including just being stupid. (As an aside, I love how the military vet who wrote the piece also tears the commercial to shit for being a cheap way to get attention for a shitty gun. Ha!)

A gun meant to kill people. It won't "protect" you; it will just give you the chance to counter-offensive and maybe take the other guy out first. Congrats, you're now up for murder investigation - yeah, George Zimmerman isn't in jail, but you bet your ass his life is over.

I'm not anti-gun; I'm anti-stupid. I just want anyone who wants to own a gun to be realistic and honest about what the thing is, what it means to own one, and why they really want it.  

So, next time you hear someone talking about a gun as "protection," just remind them "It's a gun, not a condom."



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