The
Deadly Assault Pen
Ken
L. Holder
LOS
ANGELES -- I found out yesterday that I'm a felon. I was just sitting
at my desk at work when some email came in from a mailing list I subscribe
to. The email informed me that I was committing a felony, just by sitting
there at my desk, minding my own business, harming nobody.
Actually,
it turns out I was committing multiple felonies. Now, I'm a peaceful,
easy-going, harmless fellow. I pay my bills, I pay my taxes, I'm polite
to my elders, I'm trustworthy, reverent, and all those other boy-scout
virtues. I've never harmed anybody, and never wanted to. Yet, just by
minding my own business I became a felon yesterday.
What was different about yesterday? Well, here in California eight or
nine hundred new laws went into effect. One of them made it a felony
to have a knife with a blade that locks open while at a school or university
anywhere in California. In my felonious pants pocket was a "concealed"
pocket knife with a blade that locks open.
The
knife was in my pocket because that's where you carry a pocket knife,
but since it was out of sight that made it concealed, which is an additional
felony. That's two counts.
Now,
I've carried a pocket knife ever since my grandfather gave me my first
one back when I was nine or 10 years old. Maybe 11, maybe eight, it
was so long ago I can't remember anymore. He thought a pocket knife
was a handy and useful tool, he'd carried one for 60 or 70 years, and
thought I should too.
I
suppose he made me a felon right then since the knife he gave me was
a "switch-blade" - it had a handy little button that sprang-open the
blade when pushed. This button allowed me to open the knife with one
hand, which is something you have to do sometimes. I eventually lost
that knife, and in the years since I have owned a half-dozen or so of
various sizes and shapes. I got this lock-open model last year because
sometimes the blade can slip when you're cutting something and fold
up on your fingers. You don't want this to happen.
However,
as I read more about this new California law, I found that I was even
more felonious than I thought. The law bans "a knife or other instrument
with or without a handguard that is capable of ready use as a stabbing
weapon that may inflict great bodily injury or death."
I
looked around my desk for "other instruments." There they were, six
BiC round stick ball-point pens. When I was a college student in Texas
many years ago, a highway patrol officer once told my government class
that a BiC pen made a dandy self-defense weapon - just stab frequently
about the face and neck with it. And here am, 30 years later, committing
a six-count felony with them. It gets worse, folks. I've also got one
of the 0.5-mm mechanical pencils on my desk. I've actually once accidentally
stabbed myself with one, so I have no doubt that they can inflict great
bodily injury, or even death.
The
felony counts are now over 10, counting the mechanical pencil, the six
BiC pens (three of which are the dreaded fine-point assault pens), my
pocket knife with the vile locking blade, concealed in my pocket, as
I sit here in my office at a university, committing felonies left and
right, thereby giving up my civil rights forever ... if I get caught.
Then
there's that letter opener. Oops, a couple of new highly sharpened No.
2 pencils. I started to open the pencil drawer of my desk, but just
couldn't - there's a couple of screwdrivers and a pair of scissors in
there at least, and who knows how many "other instruments" that are
"capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon that may inflict great bodily
injury or death." Jeez, folks, I used to have a hammer here on my desk!
They're going to lock me up and throw away the key.
If
they catch me.
Or
if they decide they don't like me and need an excuse to lock me up and
throw away the key. I've been known to make fun of well-meaning government
officials, and we all know how much they hate that.
It's
a good thing the cops aren't required to enforce the laws, since they'd
have to send the SWAT team down here to the university and arrest just
about everybody, staff, faculty, and students, because most of us have
BiC assault pens, and letter openers, and many of us have concealed
knives in our pockets, and lots of those concealed knives even have
blades that lock into place. It would get real crowded in the slammer
if the cops were required to enforce the law!
I've
often wondered what kind of person wants to go into government "service".
I now know: busybodies -- people who are physiologically unable to mind
their own business, who will die if they don't meddle in somebody else's
affairs.
There's
going to be a revolution in this country. It's going to be caused by
busy-bodies. Eight hundred new laws, maybe more, each and every one
of them nonsense like this. There's a new law that makes killing someone
while stealing their car illegal. Now, I thought stealing cars was already
illegal, and killing people was already illegal too. So, why an additional
law making doing both at the same time also illegal? More illegal? What
is going on here?
What's
going on is busybodies. They must "do something" even if it makes no
sense at all. They have got to meddle and tinker and fiddle. They want
to micro-manage every aspect of everything. And they are going to cause
a violent, reign-of-terror revolution in this country. Any day now.
There's
going to be a revolution in this country. There are going to be firing
squads and lynch mobs, and the people being shot and lynched are going
to be the idiotic little creeps who pass laws like these. It's going
to be a terrible time for our country, a terrible time. But you know,
when I think of standing there in a firing squad getting ready to shoot
the idiots who passed this law, I'm not going to feel quite so bad about
it after all.
Copyright©1996
Ken
Holder
