A Bullet for Your Boyfriend

I’m as big a patriot as the next person and considering my relative size and mass I could make the argument that I am, in fact, a bigger patriot than most. I tend to not push the wave-my-flag-in-your-face button too much or often.

I never met George Bernard Shaw but I am both keenly aware and inordinately fond of his observation that “…(P)atriotism is fundamentally a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it…” 

That knowledge and his delivery of it tempers my enthusiasm to purchase a red, white and blue foam finger with “We’re #1” on it whenever we visit NYC and find ourselves in front of the United Nations building.   

In the course of six plus decades here on The Big Blue Marble, much of it spent in the 48 contiguous more or less United States, I’ve benefited from and enjoyed immensely a large percentage of the rights and privileges enumerated in our Constitution and Bill of Rights and guaranteed by the toil and tears of generations of patriots and matriots. (did you see what I did there?)

Some, such as freedom of religion or freedom from religion (as more than a few have suggested) are seemingly more clear-cut and less contentious than others to include pony rides on your birthday and  the right to bear arms or bare arms (I’m not a big fan of homonyms but I sure do like cinnamon and syrup on my French toast). Perhaps the right involves arming bears-I’m never sure.

I didn’t grow up on Walton Mountain and while the wilds of Franklin Township, New Jersey, seemed vast and scary when I was a child, I concede that had a lot to do with my being a child and not so much with any actual scariness, especially now when the only fear might be running out of Grey Poupon.

We didn’t have guns in my parents’ house and I never had dealings with weapons of any kind until I joined the Air Force (mainly because I was assured they were the branch of the US Armed Forces least involved with weapons, mostly at the request of the other branches; it worked out that way for me).

For many of us, God and Guns are a way of life and as I‘ve always understood life in these United States, as long as your rights aren’t infringing on mine, and vice versa, we be cool and ships. And yet, despite that when I came across this article, I paused to ponder. I’ll point out, though you’ll realize it for yourself, this isn’t a new law in Iowa just folks having a second look, no offensive pun intended.

I will concede if I were a bad guy, the idea of a visually impaired person with a lethal weapon and a willingness to use it might color my decision on making a house call. Unless I were a ninja or a mime, I might be deterred if for no other reason than a fear of ending up interred. As for rubber ducks, the orange sauce does nothing for them at all.  

-bill kenny