Welcome To Totalitarian America
Gee, what was it the other day? George Bush is setting up a fascist state in ten easy steps? I guess he must be under-achieving there. Dan Simpson, a member of the editorial boards of The Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has written a column that achieves the entire goal of complete totalitarian control in one simple step.
Read this carefully because Simpson obviously thinks this is just peachy keen and something which should be considered (you have to assume that since he put it out for publication):
Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.
It would have to be the case that the term "hunting weapon" did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.
All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.
Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.
The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.
Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."
What a wonderful world of civil liberties that would be, no?
Special squads of police. No notice searches. Fines. Imprisonment.
One assumes the "Special Squads" will have twin lightning bolt collar buttons to go along with their initials. (Those who read here regularly know that I do not use even a hint of the term fascist without very good cause.) Regular readers also know I have a firm policy about language on this blog. That is being tested severely right now. This is exactly why the founders included the second amendment in the Bill of Rights, incidentally.
My son wanted me to point out that the techniques Mr. Simpson cheerfully advocates were used once before. But that time the contraband being seized happened to be Jews.
And Mr. Simpson, I don't think you're a "crazed liberal zealot" at all. I think you're something much more dangerous and contemptible.
But I am late to this party: Captain's Quarters, Confederate Yankee, Leibowitz's Canticle, Little Green Footballs, Volokh, Hot Air, NewsBusters, protein wisdom,
UPDATE: Dan Riehl dug up an anti-Jewish-American lobby editorial that Simpson wrote in 2004. So perhaps the real intent of the cordon and sweep is to actually round up more than the guns, eh? (That language thing of mine is really, really, really being tested right now.)
By MikeO, Friday, 27 April , 2007 @ 8:28 pm
I get the impression that Mr. Simpson once saw a Rube Goldberg cartoon, was too thick to realize the humorous intent, and, instead of smiling, he walked away with a misguided idea of what constitutes genius.
That pretty much sums up the left for you: parasitic tinkerers who award themselves extra credit for the complexities of their schemes, enact these schemes on the backs of the productive members of society, and blame the disastrous consequences on those mean-spirited capitalists. I bet that Pol Pot was shocked to find himself in hell since he just knew that his heart was in the right place.
By Chris, Friday, 27 April , 2007 @ 8:28 pm
I always find it amusing that “liberal zealots” are quite blase about ignoring the Constitution. His proposed roundup ignores three of the first ten amendments.
I especially liked the part about using the slowness of the court system to implement this “program” while it undergoes the “inevitable” challenge, which it could never survive.