Ready? Aim. Fire!

Pardon me for a moment while I get out my soap box and dust it off. I feel a rant coming on.

I drove downtown the other day and passed on of those new fangled billboards with an ad for a gun shop on it. The guy in the ad, presumably the owner, had a giant and gorgeous dead leopard draped over his shoulders, which I guess he shot with one of those guns he sells. That ad pissed me off in several different ways, which I will now list, if I can remember them all.

1. We live in freaking South Carolina. How many people around these parts are going big game hunting? It’s all deer, squirrels, and ducks in this neck of the woods, all of which you pretty much can hit with your car. Maybe you might see the occasional wild boar or lost black bear. But leopards? Not so common in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

2. I am not a big fan of hunting in general, but if you plan to eat what you shoot, then I can respect it. Food is expensive. Hell, I am paying $5.99 a pound for organic boneless chicken breasts at Costco, so I understand that a little free and free range meat is a good thing. Leopards, on the other hand, are probably not such good eating. Nor are they local or sustainable. You have to go to where the leopards live, unless you are buddies with Ted Nugent or something. Big game hunting has nothing to do with feeding your family and everything to do with power and control. Look at that beautiful animal, I love it so much I am going to kill it? I don’t think so.

3. I am also not a big fan of guns. I’ve never even seen one up close and personal. But seriously, the Second Amendment was written at a very different time in history. Those colonial fuckers didn’t have a police force or a national guard or a war on drugs. They didn’t have roads or grocery stores or an infrastructure. So it made more sense in the 18th century for everyone to arm themselves. They needed to hunt for food and protect themselves from opportunists and Injuns. We don’t have the same issues today with our personal safety. We have cell phones to use in an emergency. We have easy transportation and security alarms and mace key chains.

4. And handguns? Does anyone really hunt with them? Who walks up to a deer and shoots it with a pistol? They are for shooting other people, are they not? That argument that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, is nonsense. People kill people with guns, not show tunes!

5. Why is violence such an acceptable part of society? I thought for a moment about saying American society, but really, it is a global problem. We don’t cane people here, or chop off heads or hands in a public square. We are quite fond, however, of all things involving shooting or blowing up. Based on our television dramas, you would think the whole world revolved around forensics and detective work, or the legal action that follows such investigations. If our movies are to be believed, we have quite a little problem with serial killers. And what is the fascination with blood spewing? We have increasingly violent video games, but if you put any of those teenagers in front of a live birth, they would all hurl based on the amount of blood and gunk involved in bringing a life into this world.

6. Why is it more entertaining to watch a life end violently than a new life begin peacefully? The pussy might not be pretty, but pussy is pussy! (See number 5.)

7. Now this may be a tangent, but I would have less of a problem with a billboard with a scantily clad busty woman sucking her own index finger than I do with the man draped in a dead cat. We don’t have a problem with extreme violence, but sex is a disgusting sin? Well, I don’t know about you, but I rather screw than get shot in the head. In fact, you don’t have to hold a gun to my head. I’m pretty much happy to do it.

8. Did it occur to the people who sold the ad that the billboard isn’t that far away from the city zoo? The zoo where we just got leopard triplets? I bet those kitties are shaking in their little fur coats over that one. And those poor little kids who have to see that ad. How confusing for them. "Mom, did that man shoot one of the new leopards?" 'No sweetie, but he would if he could."

I know I should keep at this until I get to ten reasons, but fuck it, I’ve lost my steam. Time to put away my soap box and go do the laundry. Or go clean my gun. Or maybe go watch some porn. As long as it isn’t a snuff film.