I got hit with the “you don’t need that” argument the other day, and while I tried to eloquently rebut it, I honestly couldn’t come up with a compelling ‘need’ for me to own an AR-15 rifle with a magazine that will carry 30 rounds of ammunition.  I guess I lost that part of the conversation.

But while we’re stripping people of rights and property because of the bad acts of a few and the fact that a case must be made for a socially acceptable ‘need’ that must be fulfilled by that property, let’s really get to it:

I’m going to send over a crew of guys haul away that pick-up truck you have parked in the driveway.  Only people who work on farms or own construction firms need that much cargo capacity.  And I’ve seen pictures of people driving pick-up trucks with big guns and rocket launchers mounted in the bed, and having the truck is probably the hard part in getting one of those things up and running.  Honestly, if you need to bring home lumber, or mulch, or whatever, you really ought to be supporting the economy and hiring one of the people who have training in handling big trucks to deliver it.  And while we’re at it, they’ll pick up that old sports car you’ve got in the garage.  No honest man needs to go that fast, and you shouldn’t be using that old gas guzzler to get from point A to point B in the first place.  You can still use an automobile to get to and fro, but it’ll have to be one of the cars that we all agree are acceptable.

Next, we’re going to be sending a moving crew to put a family into that place you own on the lake. Who needs two houses?  What are you doing that far out in the boonies that you don’t want the rest of us to know about?  You can still go to the lake or the country.  You’ll just have to undergo a background check and sign up for one of our picturesque ‘cabins‘ at the state park.

Next, we’ll go after your golf course, especially if it’s private.  No-one needs 18 holes of manicured lawns anyway.  That land would be better used to grow food for the poor, and I’ve heard that private golf courses are an instrument of privilege and discrimination.  You can still enjoy the great outdoors, and maybe even get in 9 holes every so often.  You’ll just have to do it at places and with those people we think you ought to .

Speaking of private, we’re going to shut down those private schools you loonies are sending your kids to.  Who needs to educate their kids somewhere other than the state-provided schools?  What evil things are you all pouring into those impressionable little waifs in a school that hasn’t been approved of and run by the Department of Education?  Your children are our future, and since we depend on them to keep the party going, they shouldn’t  be sequestered away from our approved curriculum. Your children will still get an education.  It’ll just be the education on what we think is important.

Now that we’re warmed up, let’s start talking about some really troubling things that you all have been up to, and be honest, don’t need.

The next crew to come over to your home will be there to find privately-held literature.  No-one needs their own collection of books, and magazines, and web pages.  We spend good money on libraries, and they’re woefully underused.  What are you neanderthals doing buying books in the digital age anyway?  Don’t you know that all of the things that you need to be reading are at the library?  We pay lots of people to decide which books belong in our public libraries, and having your own reading material might cause you to think things that you don’t need to.  I think Timothy McVeigh read a book once, and that’s what caused him to blow up Wichita, or something.  You can still read whatever you want, of course.  That’s enshrined in the Constitution, after all.  You will just have to come to the government building to pass a background check and put your name down on the list of people who are reading.

While we’re there for your books and magazines, we’re going to search your home for such dangerous things as bibles, torrahs, korans, rosaries, prayer cards, and prayer rugs.  No-one needs those things to worship in a socially acceptable manner.  We’ve heard that pedophiles and terrorists have these things, and only someone who wants those horrors to be visited upon nuns and little girls in pink dresses would own them.  We’re also taking your crosses and crucifixes, because I saw this one movie where the bad guy had a big knife hidden in a crucifix, and it was really scary.  How do we know you all aren’t hiding big scary knives in those crosses?  You can worship as you please, of course.  That’s enshrined in the Constitution, after all.  You can just do it in a manner and place that we approve of.

Of course, I’m being ridiculous.  I don’t care if someone owns a pickup, or a sports car.  If you can afford a country home, good for you.  If you want to spend your down time chasing a little white ball around a park, have fun.  And I have been informed that Boo will be attending private school starting this fall.  As far as I’m concerned, as long as you’re not hurting someone else, enjoy your life.

There are psychos and jerks in every group, and unfortunately, they tar the decent folk who happen to have something in common with them.  The vast majority of Catholic priests minister to their congregations honorably as holy men, but their reputations have been sullied by the priests and bishops who either committed atrocities against children, or who condoned those acts by not exposing and punishing the bottom feeders among the priesthood.

Some people who own guns are indeed either evil or so messed up that they shouldn’t be allowed around the rest of us.  But how do you separate the destructive, murdering, crazy jerks from among the responsible, law-abiding citizens?  Is the answer to rampant violence in our culture the indiscriminate disarming of our populace?  I’ve been a lot of places and known a lot of people from many backgrounds.  From what I can see, the primary cause of violence in humans is breathing, because I can’t find anything else in common among all of the messed-up individuals I’ve either known or known about.

I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and no-one has ever told me that I’ve been released from that oath.  The words of Jefferson, Adams, and Madison are almost as sacred to me as the words of Paul, Timothy, and John.  The rights to say, write, and read whatever you want and worship however you want, or not, so long as no-one else gets hurt, are part of that Constitution, and are as important to me as anything else in that document, including the right to keep and bear arms.     I wholeheartedly reject the notion that the right of someone to pray the rosary is more important than my right to own any gun that I want to, regardless of a perceived need.  So until you’re ready to defend your need to have a bookshelf or a statue of Mary, stop asking me to defend my ‘need’ for a gun.