Dear Editor,
I was not able to attend [Wednesday] evening’s lecture “Guns on Campus? The New Understanding of the Right to Bear Arms,” so I wanted to give my input in writing.
The Second Amendment does say, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” However, it says “arms,” not just hand guns and rifles.
In order to expand the debate on what kind of “arms” we should be bearing, several years ago I became the founder and president of the American Land Mine Association. Our assertion was that every American had the right and privilege to possess and plant land mines anywhere they wanted. We knew that this might be hazardous to small dogs and mail carriers crossing our yards, but it made mowing the lawn much more exciting, and it taught everyone else to keep off the grass!
But, after a few years, we realized that even land mines were not big enough or important enough to really get cranked up about. That is when I became the president and founder of the American Nuclear Weapon Proliferation Society. We think that the American Constitution should be something all the countries in the world should aspire to and that the Second Amendment should be valid for them as well.
Therefore, we believe that all countries in the world have the right and privilege to “bear” nuclear weapons. Why should the “nuclear club” be limited to countries like Britain, France, Israel, the U.S.? Other countries should have the bomb as well. Countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina; Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa; North Korea, Burma, Philippines and Indonesia should have them too.
If it is true that “if all Americans had a gun, America would be safer,” then what a safe world it would be if every country had a nuclear bomb. And think how much money we could make by selling bombs to all those countries!
But why stop with nation states. We believe that even sub-national groups should possess nuclear weaponry. Hamas should have the bomb. Hezbollah should have a bomb. And why should Al Qaeda not have a nuclear bomb as well? Bad guys have guns but the good guys have more. Why should we worry if a few bad guys have nuclear bombs?
Then there is the right of every citizen in America to bear arms. Why should nuclear weapons not be included? Some entrepreneur could invent a larger rack so we could hang a bomb in the back window of our pickup trucks. Families could keep them in their homes. All we would have to be careful about would-be radiation leaks and keeping them locked up so the children wouldn’t play with them.
Certainly, there would probably be accidents. Every day people shoot family members to death who are coming home late from work and are mistaken for burglars. But those stories are so commonplace anymore that they are relegated to page 7 in the newspaper. After a few bombs went off, we would get used to that as well, even though, instead of shooting your son coming home late from a date, we would accidentally wipe out half the state. It’s just a matter of scale.
So, why talk about rinky-dink stuff like guns. If we are going to go out, let’s go out with a bang.
Remember, nuclear bombs don’t kill people. People kill people!
-Tom Rice, English Instructor at K-State, who is on display daily in his office
dripping with sarcasm.