After Mr Cooper's posting last week about British gun laws, in the interests of political balance I would like to add my own tuppence worth to the argument. I might have posted on this subject before. I might not. Whatever the case, guns, in my opinion, should be banned from every walk, hobble and trudge of British life, including those weapons in the sweaty grips of the bastards who hang around on rooftops whenever the Queen, Tony Blair or John-There's-A-Lot-Of-Me-For-A-Terrorist-To-Aim-At Prescott decide to visit and who cost the poll-tax payers billions.
Most of all, however, guns should be banned from the cow pat encrusted hands of remedial farmers. (Editor's note: Surely that's an ill-informed stereotype? Farmers aren't all inbred members of the landed gentry!) (What the fuck would you know? We're not discussing the 'I want to be like Tom and Barbara Good' type of Yuppie farmers here, with their organically grown horse manure and their free-range gherkins. Now keep your beak out of my Blog, dickwad!)
When I was a strapping lad of about fifteen or so (approximately five years ago as the temporally challenged crow flies) we had our milk delivered to my parents' little shop by the local farmer. Young 'Enry he was called. (I can name him openly without fear of recrimination here as the inbred bastard was barely able to speak let alone read, write or operate a computer.) He was a one hundred per cent thoroughbred yokel, with string tied round his trousers to prevent rats attacking his wedding tackle, flat cap on his bulbous head, fingers like sausage rolls and a pock-marked purple face that bore a striking resemblance to a gibbon's arse. Especially when he spoke and huge turds plummetted from his mouth.
To say that Young 'Enry was several genes short of a full pool would be an understatement. If only IQ sizes were matched by peoples' sperm counts then the 'Enry' family would have died out centuries before. Unfortunately the farm had been passed down through the family ownership (and, by the looks of the buildings, through several colons) for thousands of years, as indeed had the same set of genes. One of the reasons Young 'Enry found it difficult to count was because he had considerably more fingers and toes than normal people.
Anyhow, one day Young 'Enry arrived on my mother's doorstep with a very long face. (This was normal, his entire head having been genetically modified over the generations to the point where the residents of Easter Island would have stood in awe.) "What's the matter 'Enry?" asked my mother.
"We 'ad to shoot me favourite dog last night," 'Enry replied, rolling his threadbare cap in his hands and then throttling it angrily. "'Ee'd bin barkin' and keepin' me awake. So I 'ad to shoot 'im. Fifteen years I've 'ad that dog and the bastard goes and spoils me night's sleep like that."
Which, even at such a young and impressionable age, brought up the question in my mind of gun ownership and why people such as 'Enry had the right to bear arms. Especially double barrelled shotguns. Even back then in the mists of time, several decades B.D. (Before Dunblane) it was illegal for any normal British citizen to own a gun. Unless you happened to be a farmer with an I.Q. of six and a penchant for killing little fluffy things at random.
To be honest, there really is no excuse. "Well, Oi needs a bloody big shotgun so's I can control the vermin on moi land." (Presumably this includes hikers who, despite having rights of way across most British fields, frequently find the styles concealed by strategically grown hedgerows and landmines.) Control the vermin? A double-barrelled shotgun? What sort of fucking vermin do these farmers have? Savage rabbits that can take out a human jugular with one swift bite? Palestinian Suicide Moles that burrow their way into farmyards and then explode? Al Quaeda fieldmice that drive combine harvesters into twin silos in the name of Allah? Seriously, for fuck's sake! I could hardly call feral sheep a danger to life and limb, even when the inbred bastards are busy taking them from behind on a moonswept night. So what gives farmers the right to keep guns when the rest of us aren't allowed to even look at them on the telly?
Perhaps the answer lies in the good old aristocracy. That final bastion from legal requirement to which the ancient, albeit diminished, farming stock are still related. The Duke of Edinburgh seems to have no problem carrying a shotgun, as indeed his fellow upper-crust brethren don't. One law for the rich, another for the poor. "We need them to ward off ramblers who trespass on our estates and shoot bunnies and foxes and things."
My recommendation: Give them one last chance to blow their own heads off and then tighten gun controls to involve everyone, with the exception of the military and special branch of course. And anyone caught in possession of a gun should have one testicle removed. Let's see if they ever get caught carrying another one after that.
