Roy Exum: The Saturday Funnies

  • Saturday, February 24, 2018
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

Every day, without exception, I find a number of “treats” in my daily dose of email. These funnies, and other pertinent information, are sent to me by a myriad of “Internet Buddies” who I repay by sending out some of the funniest that I collect. Think of it as sort of a “co-op” for my readers to enjoy.

When The Saturday Funnies began last summer, it was what I still think is a clever way for me to share laughter, something we badly need to do, and every week I am careful to add a disclaimer – that I personally did not write a one, and that most of them are unattributed.

Today, in light of the fact our nation is still reeling from the Florida school massacre on Valentine’s Day, I am going to veer off course by substituting “common sense” for “funny.” I have about 20 special friends who share wisdom with me all the time and a favorite of mine is “L.C.” or “Larry.” Here’s a guy who was once a very successful engineer, and also a teacher, who sends me regular examples of plain ole “common sense” that constantly delight me.

He researches stuff, and is quick to correct me when I am wrong. This week the “gun control” fanatics got to him because what they propose almost always lacks common sense. Example: President Trump calls for raising the age requirement to buy guns to 21. Yesterday I had lunch with a Juvenile judge who says he has never seen more minors carrying guns in his life. Guess what? Every gun found on a minor is illegal. Their parents/guardians will go to jail if they are caught with a gun so they have the children carry them!

Now, to get back to my man “L.C.” Here is a brief essay he sent to me on Friday and the renewed call for gun control. I hope you’ll enjoy its common sense as much as I did:

WHAT IF EVERY GUN IN THE WORLD DISAPPEARED?

This isn't a difficult concept; give it a bit of thought: If all guns of all kinds were instantaneously removed from the whole world, would that mean there would never be another school or church massacre?

When you have recovered from laughing at that, why don't you develop a list of other weapons that would simply take the place of guns, allowing the massacres to continue with hardly a pause?

Because we both know that guns are not the problem, they are just the present tool-of-choice.  Making guns unavailable wouldn't stop the violence at all, it would merely require a shift in thinking, a re-tooling before continuing.

Of course, many of those alternatives are a lot more personally messy than guns; you can't really carve up a person with a knife, without getting all messed up yourself.

Also, look up the definition of massacre.  Once upon a time it meant the mass killing of those who were unable to defend themselves.  Reference the Malmedy Massacre by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge.

Now the word massacre means just a mass killing, regardless of the circumstances. And I suspect that change of meaning is somehow intimately connected to the whole situation, right?

The truth hasn't changed; these modern massacres are always of those who couldn't defend themselves.  But that lack-of-defense detail is rarely acknowledged in the news; the detail of note is the gun(s) the assassin used.

So do away with all guns, and let's see what happens; we shouldn't have to wait long!

* * *

SOME STATISTICS (c.a. 2015) FROM THE WEB

The National Safety Council says it currently estimates that last year (2015), "38,300 people were killed on U.S. roads, and 4.4 million were seriously injured, meaning 2015 likely was the deadliest driving year since 2008.

The United States is home to the second largest passenger vehicle market of any country in the world, second now to China. Overall, there were an estimated 263.6 million registered passenger vehicles in the United States in 2015.  This number, along with the average age of vehicles, has increased steadily since 1960.

Some 13,286 people were killed in the US by firearms in 2015, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and 26,819 people were injured [those figures exclude suicide]

According to the Congressional Research Service, there are now more than 300 million guns in the United States. Gun sales have increased in recent years.

Now, a simple arithmetic analysis of that information:

* -- 38,300 road deaths / 263,600,000 passenger vehicles = 0.0001453 deaths per vehicle (1 : 6,883) This is one death for every 6,883 passenger vehicles

* -- 4.4 million serious auto injuries / 263.6 million vehicles = 0.01669 serious injuries per vehicle (1 : 60) This is one serious injury for every 60 passenger vehicles

* -- 13,286 gun deaths / 300,000,000+ guns = 0.0000443 deaths per gun (1 : 22,580) one death for every 22,580 guns.

* -- 26,819 gun injuries / 300,000,000+ guns = 0.0000894 injuries per gun (1 : 11,186) one injury for every 11, 186 guns.

So, on a machine by machine comparison, you're more than 3 times as likely to die by automobile as by gun, and 186 times as likely to be injured by automobile as by gun.

And in the case of guns, it's safe to assume that most of the damage is inflicted by (a) 'unregistered' (illegally possessed) guns illegally wielded by (b) unlicensed (illegal) users in the commission of a crime.  Removing all of those incidents from the gross statistics would eliminate almost all of the gun deaths and most of the gun injuries.

But, as we know, the first rule of reform is to choose a detail that will not affect you, and then reform away! So, reasonably enough, we can always depend that those of the Left to choose to eliminate guns from the equation ... except for their own bodyguards, etc.

* * *

A cautionary tale from about 1979; you can look it up if you want to:  Some big-city apartment-dwelling doofus (I picture a fat kid, stupid, idle, pimply, smelly, etc.) got mad at his mother and decided to remove her from this world.  His plan was to claim that she had climbed a ladder to clean the windows in their high-rise dwelling -- and fell off the ladder, broke the window, fell many stories to the pavement, and was mangled almost beyond recognition.

So first he beat her to death with a ball bat, then tried to carry out the rest of his plan.  But (a) the Saran Wrap he'd put on the ball bat wouldn't flush down the toilet, leaving him with a bloody mess.  (B) the whole room where he did the deed was bloodied up.  And (c) the ball bat just wouldn't break the safety glass window on that high apartment.

He was left with a bunch of bloody plastic and a dead and bloody mother, and his major statement to the police was (a) "It's harder than I thought to kill a person with a ball bat, and (b) it's harder than I thought to break a window with a ball bat."

Poor doofus, it just wasn't his day!

But you can bet that other doofuses will still try to use ball bats as their weapons of mass destruction.  Just take away all the guns, and wait for it.

* * *

The “real” Saturday Funnies will resume next week.

royexum@aol.com

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