We Must Ban Human Nature for the Sake of Humanity

Ned Ryun

In the wake of the Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton shootings, Americans have heard quite a bit of talk about assault weapons bans and “red flag” laws. I think it’s probably time to accept that there should be bans. Surely, though, guns aren’t the only objects in need of banning. Here are a few modest proposals.

First, it’s time to ban knives. While I understand that these tools are useful in the kitchen, for hunting, for carving, quite frankly for all sorts of things, the fact is knives kill. I bet you didn’t know this, but you are four times more likely to be murdered with a knife or box cutters than with a rifle. Therefore, morally, to save society, we should ban knives and box cutters. While I’m very sorry that this will make it difficult for you to open packages that some genius decided to seal with half a roll of packing tape, what is that frustration when pitted against saving even one human life?

While we’re at it, it’s time to also ban hands and feet. Before you start complaining, I get it. I understand the potential this ban has to make it difficult for us to function in life, but we need to be serious about the deaths that hands and feet cause: personal weapons, known as hands, feet, or fists, killed 692 people in 2017 according to the latest FBI stats versus 403 by a rifle, which by the way, nearly half of those rifle deaths are for unknown causes (think accidents).

The dangers of hands and feet are not to be taken lightly. Because of their potential for deadly force, I’m proposing that a universal background check should be done on every citizen so we can ascertain whether he or she will be responsible in the usage of their appendages. As a universal background system will only work with a universal registry, I’m hereby calling for a National Hands, Fist, and Feet Registry so that every American will feel safe from the clear and present threat that a human being’s hands or feet could pose. While we’re at it, there should be Hands and Feet Red Flag Laws. If you see someone misusing their hands and feet, there should be a way to report that immediately and check them against the national registry to make sure that the background check didn’t show any potential for nefarious intent.

We must also ban blunt objects, including hammers. While I understand this will make nailing objects together quite difficult, go find a rock or another board or some hard object: we have to confront the fact that hammers can be used as a deadly weapon and you are more likely to be killed by one of those than with a rifle. Having done quite a bit of home renovations and building in my time, I am fully aware how difficult it will be to build in the future, but for the sake of humanity, hammers should be banned.

As a universal background system will only work with a universal registry, I’m hereby calling for a National Hands, Fist, and Feet Registry so that every American will feel safe from the clear and present threat that a human being’s hands or feet could pose.

While we’re at it, I don’t want anyone to think they will skirt the hammer ban with nail guns. Oh, no. Those are going to be banned as well. Have you ever seen one of those in action? In a word, deadly. All nail guns are to be banned if only to save one hand or foot or life—provided, of course, that hand or foot is registered.

In this entire list of banned objects, I would of course never leave moving trucks or “lorries” out of the equation. As we have seen in Nice, France with the deaths of 82 people, moving trucks are a deadly weapon and should be banned. I realize this will make the process of moving difficult, but might I offer a horse and wagon approach? Their lower speeds make them almost impossible to use in the deadly way trucks have been used. And while I understand the inconvenience of it all, and the size limitations, and the slower speeds,, remember this is all for humanity’s sake.

Bottom line: I think we should be willing to ban literally anything and everything that might be used to kill another human being. This would include wood, rocks, water, fertilizer, No. 2 pencils (Just saying: the Joker in “The Dark Knight” made one of those deadly objects disappear inside someone’s brain; very unpleasant things can be done with No. 2 pencils), scissors, cars, rope, shoelaces, bed sheets; really the list is almost inexhaustible.

But honestly, I think the most important thing that should be banned is human nature.

I’m very serious about this: human nature is what animates the above inanimate objects. An inanimate object never killed anyone of its own volition or will or force; it has none of those qualities and something had to move it for death to happen. To quote Seneca, “A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.” It is, in fact, the evil that lurks in every fallen human being that if left unchecked, finds whatever tools it needs to kill or maim.

We now see people pounding the table, demanding an assault weapons ban and red flag laws, which are in defiance of statistics. But more importantly, the call for such things is in defiance of natural rights: self-defense is a natural right, therefore gun rights are a natural right. Government does not give us our natural rights, therefore government cannot legitimately take any of them away.

For those who are perhaps still interested in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, it should be noted that the Ninth Amendment is there for a reason. The Founders knew that there was simply no way to list out every right that we as human beings have been endowed with by our Creator. So the Ninth Amendment simply states: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Put simply, our Constitution and Bill of Rights were meant more to constrain government, box it in, and leave the greatest amount of freedom for the people within the bounds of ordered liberty.

So to those proposing and pushing bans and red flag laws, tread carefully: to destroy natural rights in pursuit of short term political gain is how great republics end.

https://www.amgreatness.com/20...he-sake-of-humanity/

Makes perfect sense to me

quote:

.."to destroy natural rights in pursuit of short term political gain is how great republics end".

Tread carefully? This is the exact goal of the left, the end of the great republic known as The United States of America. They will tread like a herd of elephants over any right that will bring about their goal, and they will not care one bit about who gets trampled.

Of course this essay is an expanded version of the age old truism: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
But I enjoyed it.

A nice update on an old method of cricism by exaggeration, see Jonathan Swift “let’s eat Irish babies” satire.