By Steve “the Mailman” Breen Going Postal
OK, SO WHAT’S ALL THE RAMPANT HAND wringing over gun ownership in this country by liberal fascists who want to suborn the Second Amendment and convert the populace of our Republic from being “citizens” to “subjects?”Please remember that Red China, Russia and Nazi Germany have/had “gun control” whose legislative affronts resulted in all sorts of enlightened and novel approaches to social engineering; recently bloodied Tibetan monks, “resort accommodations” at Soviet gulags for dissidents and “showers” at Auschwitz leap to mind.
This country was founded from the barrel of a gun at Lexington Green over British taxes on tea hence the plethora of Starbucks emporiums in our country today. The raison d’etre of the Second Amendment is to reinforce the first. If one desires to “speak truth to power” one had better possess the incendiary wherewithal to give those in power a modicum of pause to take note of ones issues of redress.
Here are some inconvenient truths: [A] Number of physicians in the U.S.: 700,000 [B] Accidental deaths caused by physicians/year: 120,000 [C] Accidental deaths/physician: 0.171 percent [D] Number of gun owners in the U.S.: 80 million [E] Accidental gun deaths/year for ALL age groups: 1,500 [F] Accidental deaths/gun owner: 0.000188 percent! (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services 2005) Statistically speaking, doctors are 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. While 26 percent of us have a gun, 84 percent of us have a doctor. Do the math … pretty grim numbers. Wait until we have nationalized health care.
Other inconvenient truths: Most accidental deaths for 2006 involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (39 percent), poisoning (18 percent), falls (16 percent), suffocation (5 percent), drowning (2.9 percent), fires (2.8 percent), and bicycles/tricycles (0.7 percent).
Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking.
Let me get this straight … guns are a problem here?
We’ve experienced an unrepentant geezer who plowed his 3,000 lb. missile of mayhem through a crowded Farmers’ Market in 2003; casualties resulted in 10 dead and 63 wounded. We’ve had two high-profile murders in SM recently as well as the trial and convictions for the “Black Widows.” Has anyone found a “smoking gun” in any of these cases?
Folks, you can’t walk around in yogic bliss expectant that SM’s finest is going to magically appear when you dial 911. When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away. It’s a very thin Blue Line between you and the Hannibal Lecters of the world so it devolves to your rights under the Second Amendment to extinguish some sociopath from roasting your chestnuts over his felony inspired mesquite grill. The cops in this town work damn hard to provide you with your precious quality of life yet there is only so much they can do unless you do some housecleaning and take out the “trash” from time to time yourselves. Think of it as “recycling.”
“I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy”
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — John Steinbeck Eleanor Roosevelt MOST MARTIAL DISCI- PLINES REQUIRE YEARS OF STUDY BEFORE ITS EFFICACY IS REALIZED. I SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE
And simple self-defense doesn’t mean that one need go to Bazooka Pete’s Armory and order a “Rambo-Size” for ones Colt.45 Happy Meal. Some folks are incapable of eating with chopsticks let alone operating an AA-12 in a stressful conundrum.
Like driving a car, keep your head on a swivel with the same degree of wariness you’d possess that would prevent that unwashed hippie in his Yugo from scratching your new Ford Global Warmer in traffic.
Actually make the effort to get to know your neighbors. Think “common cause.”
And if you are still heebie-jeebies about owning a “Chicago Piano” then avail yourself of a good martial arts program. There are a couple of great teachers here in town at Sacred Energy Arts on 220 Pier Ave. next door to the Novel Café.
Owner Matt Cohen and Michael Long are superb teachers with boundless years of experience.
What you learn that night from them, you can use that night. Most martial disciplines require years of study before its efficacy is realized. I speak from experience.
In my personal journey of over 40 years of martial arts training, Matt and Mike have the “good stuff.”
They also gear the lesson for your fitness level and age. Most of all, its fun and useful. Your self-confidence will exponentially increase. Learn to kick some ass and take names before some jailhouse knucklehead adds you to his dance card. Put the “self” back into “self-defense”. It’s your “right,” after all.
Let’s take back the night and teach your children well.
STEVE BREEN is an Annie Oakley Republican and the “best looking mailman at the Post Office.” He
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 23, 2008. Read the original PDF.