Calvinball

Alright, here's a little game I created. I call it "Ban the Assault Rifle." The advantage of "Ban the Assault Rifle," as compared to a game like "Close the Gun Show Loophole," is that, unlike gun show loopholes, assault rifles do at least exist.

First things first. If we're going to ban an assault rifle, then we'd better find one, right? So, is this an assault rifle?

Nah. This is called a ranch rifle. The mechanical design of this gun is nearly 80 years old. This rifle has been carried in the back of pick-up trucks, over hunters' shoulders, and in scabbards slung from saddles for decades. It fires an intermediate round (really a beefed-up .22 caliber) and has probably shot more coyotes on sheep ranches, converted more deer into venison, and cleared more cattle grazing land of prairie dogs than almost any rifle ever made. It is inexpensive, yet accurate enough out of the box for the job it needs to do, even with its fairly rough and ready iron sights. You have to pull the trigger each time you want it to fire a single round. It is designed to fire under adverse conditions like the snow and mud with which ranchers and hunters often contend.

So, not an assault rifle and we won't be banning that one.

Ah, but what about this one?

This rifle, in tactical black, is a semi-auto civilian version of the automatic rifle that American troops first carried into Vietnam and which some military snipers use today. It has a collapsible stock to make it easier to transport and to adjust to differing tactical circumstances. It can be fitted with a 30-round magazine and a bi-pod, if your tactical circumstances dictate. It fires the same round that most of our troops are carrying now in Afghanistan. It can be made highly accurate. Its tactical* accessory rails allow it to be fitted with powerful optics, weapon lights or even night-vision capable sights. It is in use by police and armed forces across the world.

So that one must be the assault rifle, right?

Sorry, no. We won't be banning this one either. An assault rifle is a select fire military rifle capable of firing fully automatic fire; pull of the trigger and the bullets keep coming out of the business end until you stop pulling the trigger. This rifle is semi-automatic only. You have to pull the trigger each time you want it to fire a single round.

Hey. Wait just a New York Minute.** "You have to pull the trigger each time you want it to fire a single round." Isn't that just what I said about the ranch rifle? What's going on here?

Now, at this point, the more gun savvy among you have concluded that I am cheating. In my defense, I did say at the outset that were were playing a game I created. My game, my rules and one of Robert's Rules is "Who writes the rules, wins the game."

The operative rule here is that I'm allowed to wait until now to admit that both the rifles pictured above are the same rifle, the venerable Ruger Mini-14, developed on the mechanical action of the M1 Garand that soldiers carried in World War 2.***  The action is so robust, simple, reliable and easily maintained that it has remained virtually unchanged as it has been adapted to various other rifles, including the Mini-14's immediate progenitor, the M-14 (a heavy-caliber battle rifle still in limited use today as modified into a sniper weapon).

The two rifles pictured here -- the friendly, traditional brown one and the evil black one -- are precisely the same rifle, except that the action and the barrel wear different furniture in each picture. Both variants of the rifle pictured fire the same cartridge, in exactly the same way, at exactly the same rate, to exactly the same effect. They are equally as deadly or useful, equally as capable of being used for good or for evil. They are, simply, the same. And banning the lower one is just as damned silly as banning the upper one.

If this is confusing to you, this notion that a thing is still the same thing despite the mode of its dress, consider what you are wearing now, what you will wear tomorrow and how profoundly or superficially this changes your actual identity.

Or, if you prefer, consider this fellow . . . 

. . . and this fellow . . . 

. . . and kindly tell me, which one you want to ban.**** 

* That is four "tacticals," in case you have not been keeping count.

** Which Mayor Bloomberg has decided is simply too long, at 60 seconds. He has introduced an ordinance with his pet city counsel to create the "Bloomberg Minute," which will last either 50 seconds, or the amount of time he spends considering the concept of liberty each day, whichever is less.

*** Gen. George S. Patton called the M1 Garand "the greatest battle implement ever devised." This from a guy who commanded an armored corps and has a tank named after him.

**** No fair pointing out that Clooney himself would probably approve if that version of "Batman" were kept out of the hands of the public.

Get off of my lawn

Walt Kowalski gave new power to a command as old as suburbia. Sure, he punctuated his directive with what General Patton called “the greatest single battle implement ever devised by man.” But it was the gravel in his voice and the feral gleam in his eye that left no doubt.

My Dad looked a lot like Walt Kowalski. He was a few years older – Walt’s war was Korea; Dad was in the big show. Like Walt, Dad favored a push reel lawnmower. Like Walt, Dad loved his lawn.

But Dad was not a “get off of my lawn” kind of guy. The only guns in the house were an antique revolver in .22 short that I wasn’t supposed to know about, packed away in a shoe box in the attic, and a Damascus steel, double-barrel, open hammer shotgun that my grandfather had used to pot rabbits. The only time I ever saw that shotgun – or any other weapon – in Dad’s hands was the day he gave it to me, broken down and wrapped in a towel.

Dad’s entire notion of home defense played out in his nightly rounds to check all the doors on his way to bed. I suppose you cannot argue with his approach from an empirical standpoint. No home invasions at 3916 Fenley Road. No assaults in the driveway. The Chevy Biscayne was never carjacked, nor the Malibu after that. You’ll be tempted to say that his bridge stood up, so he built it right.

You would be wrong to chalk his choices up to the time and the place (although certainly that could account for the results). What it really came down to was temperament and worldview. It simply wasn’t in Dad to think that anyone in the world would want to do him ill, when he wished ill to no man. Even World War Two couldn’t change that.  Added to that was mid-century variety of undiluted faith in the state, a nearly talismanic belief in the power of the police department number on the pad next to the phone in the kitchen. Blessedly, he passed away never having cause to doubt that faith. 

But as for me, as for now, as for here – with all the love and respect any man can possibly have for his father – I simply know better.