Columnist's "Modest Proposal" as Offensively
Arrogant as Original, and it's Not Satire
By Kurt Hofmann, April 1st 2015
JPFO writer contributor, © 2014.
Ever notice how so many proposed infringements on that which shall not be infringed are described by their supporters as "modest"? I certainly have. Whether it's "Obama unveils modest new restrictions on some guns," or "Gun Lobby's Effective Use of Second Amendment to Scuttle Even Modest Safety Measures ,"or "Leahy Introduces Modest Gun Safety Measure in the Senate," or some other of the myriad variations, we are to view the supreme arrogance of efforts to control our means of defending our lives and liberty, as "modest."
Gun rights are of course not the only freedom we can now expect to come under supposedly "modest" attack these days. President Obama once told us that the massive, systematic campaign of domestic spying inflicted on us under his administration constitute only "modest encroachments on privacy." Enough to make one wonder how imperious a spying campaign would have to be to merit him calling it "domineering," doesn't it?
Well, Jamar Thrasher, columnist for the Penn Live/"Patriot" [sigh]-News would like to bring "modesty" to new heights of egomania, "modestly" proposing to ban civilian ownership of firearms:
This got me to wondering and I realize now that guns are selfish and bring nothing productive to the conversation.
Therefore, civilian gun ownership should be banned.
Jamar Thrasher
You see, when, as a 15-year-old, Thrasher was threatened by a thuggish armed hooligan, he modestly reached the conclusion that his experience with guns defines their value, and that, therefore, the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms is null and void--because he modestly says so.
But that's not arrogance talking, apparently, because he offers his "guarantee" that his proposal would reduce murders:
But I guarantee, that if guns are outlawed, murders would decrease.
In his modesty, he has no problem dismissing a Harvard study that presents evidence countering that claim--although he modestly refrains from explaining what is wrong with the study. Here's what he apparently believes serves as his explanation (bold emphasis added):
If gun ownership was tightly regulated there would be no gun-related deaths -- or there would be far fewer of them. It's as simple as that.
Hmm . . . no "gun related" deaths? Kinda like the way that bans on heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine have brought about the end of deaths from those drugs? Oh . . . wait. Of course, even he knows that's not true, so he covered himself with the "or there would be far fewer of them" qualifier-- a "modest" difference, one supposes. Thrasher is right about one thing--his assertion is "simple," alright. Simply wrong, but simple without a doubt.
The first use, or at least the most famous one, of the title "A Modest Proposal," was Jonathan Swift's 18th century treatise by that name. In it, Swift suggested that multiple problems could be solved with a program in which starving, impoverished Irish families would sell their children to the wealthy--as food. Thrasher, by contrast, would prefer to simply ban parents' most effective means of defending their children from those who would prey on and consume them.
Oh--and the other difference is that Swift's "Modest Proposal" was satire. Thrasher, in his modest way, seems really to want his to happen.
A former paratrooper, Kurt Hofmann was paralyzed in a car accident in 2002. The helplessness inherent to confinement to a wheelchair prompted him to explore armed self-defense, only to discover that Illinois denies that right, inspiring him to become active in gun rights advocacy. He also writes the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner column. Kurt Hofmann Archive.
