Heh-heh-heh

Heh-heh-heh:

If IANSA isn't happy, I'm happy.

But Rebecca Peters of the London-based International Action Network on Small Arms accused governments of letting a few states "hold them all hostage and to derail any plans which might have brought any improvements in this global crisis."

Well done, then. Anything that makes Ms. Peters frustrated in her professional capacity is a thing I'm glad to see. Odd list of allies this time, though:

IANSA identified the main players blocking agreement as Cuba, India, Iran, Pakistan and Russia. Other gun control activists named China, Egypt and Venezuela as well.

I'm not accustomed to seeing my interests line up with Venezuela's and Iran's. We'll need to look into that, after the party.

Still, I'm glad to see my letters got there all right:

The meeting was dogged from the start by zealous members of the U.S. National Rifle Association, who flooded the United Nations with letters falsely accusing it of secretly plotting to take away Americans' guns on July 4, a U.N. holiday marking U.S. Independence Day when delegates did not meet.

This is a news story, right? Not an editorial? Which part was false? That they were meeting the week of Independence Day? No, they were, and the fact that they didn't hold formal talks on that one day hardly means there were no meetings or conversations going on behind the scenes.

That they were plotting to take away America's gun rights? No, that part was true too. Ms. Peters said so herself.

I think American citizens should not be exempt from the rules that apply to the rest of the world. At the moment there are no rules applying to the rest of the world. That’s what we’re working for.

American citizens should have guns that are suitable for the legitimate purposes that they can prove.

I think that eventually Americans will realize that their obsession with arming themselves in fear, in a paranoid belief that they’re going to be able to stave off the ills of the world through owning guns, through turning every house into an arsenal, eventually Americans will go away from that.

I think Americans who hunt—and who prove that they can hunt—should have single-shot rifles suitable for hunting whatever they’re hunting. I mean American citizens should be like any other citizens of the world.

So -- if you can prove (to Ms. Peters and her ilk) that you have a legitimate purpose, she thinks it might be proper for you to have a single-shot rifle (suitable for hunting). But the Second Amendment has to go -- Americans must live under the same rules as the rest of the world. Rules she wants to write. Yet, of course, it is a fearful-paranoid-false-accusation to say that... well, to tell the truth about what she herself says she wants.

If I said I thought "the rest of the world should live under the same laws as Americans," that would be jingoistic Cowboy-speak. Reverse the formula -- "America must live by the same rules as the rest of the world" -- and it's progressive wisdom.

Not on Independence Day. That's what "Independence" means.

Molon Labe. Remember the Spartans? Remember the Alamo?

I do.