APRIL FOOL’S DAY IN THE WORLD OF THE GUN

As I’m writing this 4/1/10 is drawing to a close, and damned if the day’s e-mail didn’t carry with it three, count them, THREE gun-related versions of the spoofs and practical jokes that have become an American tradition on April Fool’s day.

Up in Seattle, old friend and colleague Dave Workman put some time into his April First gun control parodies. You’ll find them HERE.

A friend in the firearms industry offers THIS hilarious send-up of military procurement of firearms in the time of recession…

One of my shooting school graduates and match-shootin’ buddies – whom I will not name here because he hasn’t yet e-mailed me back yet with permission to “out” him – has sent THIS along.

Washington, DC, AP. In a major radio address to the nation this morning, President Obama announced a new program “to level the self-defense field for America’s poor.” Beginning his speech by stating, “the Second Amendment is just as critical to America’s liberty as the First and Fifth Amendments,” Obama continued: “Starting today, anyone who owns more than four guns will be required to give one of them to a poor person.”

“For too long many of our people have been denied their Second Amendment rights because of poverty,” he explained. “They have been unable to purchase high-quality American-made revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, and have had to rely instead on cheap, foreign-made junk guns and ‘Saturday Night Specials.’ It’s time to level the playing field. The current maldistribution of defensive firepower must be set right.”

Furthermore, he said, this initiative will produce “thousands of jobs” at American gun factories. Spokesmen for Colt’s, Smith & Wesson, and Ruger all expressed enthusiasm for the new rules. Spokesmen for Taurus and Rossi were unavailable at press time.

Finally, any government official who has taxpayer-paid security guards will have to assign one of them to protect a poor person who resides in a high-crime neighborhood. “Many of our elderly poor are at the mercy of young hoodlums and gang members,” Obama said. “Government has an obligation to help ensure the safety of innocent people. These highly trained guards will go a long way toward that end.”

If you find these links funny, rejoice: it means we firearms folk aren’t just grim-faced American Gothic types out there on the farm, “clinging to our guns and Bibles,” and all of that…

And, if you don’t find them all that funny…well, maybe it just ISN’T that funny when powerful people want to take away your rights and your property.