For those of you who don't know yet, recently in Tuscon, Arizona, a shooting occurred killing 6 people. Gebrielle Giffords (member of the House of Representatives) was one of these people. In light of this event, many people have cried out for increased gun control. Peter King, a Representative from New York, is working on legislation that he believes will ensure that such an event would never happen again. This bill will make it illegal to carry a gun within 1000 feet of a government official. Take a moment to let that sink in. There are a few obvious flaws with this plan, which is why I name Peter King the biggest asshole of this still very young year.
4) What's the point? Laws exist (or at least they're supposed to) for the sole purpose of protecting our greatest rights (i.e. life, liberty, and property, see the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution). At the point where someone sees no problem in violating another's right to life, I seriously doubt he's going to care about a law saying he can't carry a gun near you. He obviously has no qualms with breaking one law, why would he care about breaking two?
3) Who's going to protect your ass? If the bill passes, this means those protecting the officials can't carry guns either. Sure, they could use tasers or knives or something, but as I said before, these people have no problem breaking laws. So when your guard pulls out his taser, the shooter is just going to laugh and put a bullet in his head before turning his attention to you. Congratulations, you managed to keep yourself alive for two more seconds, if that.
2) It doesn't solve the problem. Normally, laws are put in place because they either put an end to, or significantly reduce a negative occurrence in society (or promote a positive one). Let's say that this actually works, and people stop carrying firearms around government officials. What about knives? Or swords? Axes? Clubs? Flails? Bows? Cars? Bombs? Fire? The list goes on. Even if you manage to stop the shooting, it won't stop the killing. If a person is determined to kill you, he will find a way.
1) The reason Peter King is an asshole. So far, I've only given reasons why he's a dumbass, but what really takes the asshole cake is the most obvious flaw: the fact that this bill will only protect government officials, or as I like to call them, some of the most useless people in the country, but I won't get into that now. So Mr. King is trying to protect lives, right? At least he's trying, that's something, isn't it? No, that's nothing. All he's doing is trying to protect his own useless ass. Seriously, how many people get killed a year? And how many of those are government officials? Not as many as those who aren't, exactly. How about instead of being a little pussy trying to save your own hide, you do something that will actually help prevent these people from getting weapons in the first place? Jackass.
