Guns and Roses

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Guns and Roses

Just when you think the Virginia legislature can’t get any loonier, they step right up to the plate and hit a home run for stupidity right out of the park. Not satisfied to allow their heat packing friends in the NRA to tote pistols into playgrounds and recreation centers, these nitwits have now decided that there would be nothing better than to permit concealed weapons in restaurants and – get this – saloons! That’s right. They’ve decided that there’s no better combination than booze and guns.

House Bill 1997, as this whiz of a resolution is known, would indeed permit licensed gun owners in Virginia to keep one hand on their pocketed pistols while they lift a pint or two or three to their lips with the other. And it’s all perfectly legal. In the name, of course, of self defense.

That these legislative gun barrel sniffers should pull such a stunt should surprise no one, however, since Virginia has always had a fecund womb when it comes to birthing bills favoring the gun crowd. Indeed, no fewer that 170,000 people in the state now have permits to carry concealed weapons just about anywhere they want.

What they base their so-called gun toting “rights” on is nothing less than the Virginia constitution itself. And indeed the Virginia constitution, like the federal constitution, does guarantee such rights – under certain very clearly stipulated conditions. And all these conditions have to do with the necessity for a militia.

What the state constitution actually says is that “A well regulated militia composed of the body of the people TRAINED TO ARMS, is a proper, natural and safe defense for a free state; therefore, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.”

On the other hand, and not to be outdone by any other state, Virginia has established so many militias that you would think it was an independent country about to be attacked by that Axis of Evil consisting of Tennessee, Maryland and West Virginia. West Virginia, of course, has about the same status amongst Virginians as Iraq does with Bush. You just never know when the mountaineers are going to start lobbing coal bombs of mass destruction at Richmond.

So Virginia has a National Guard, a Virginia State Defense Force, a Naval Militia, and the nebulous, but all important, Unregulated Militia. Presumably, then, while the National Guard is off fighting Bush’s war with Iraq, the State Defense Force, which keeps the state’s armories clean, would fill in for them and ward off the attack of the West Virginians. And just to make sure that the Marylanders don’t decide to take advantage of our weakened position, the Naval Militia would be ready to deal with them.

That leaves the Unregulated Militia, which is so unregulated that no one knows what it is – except, of course, that we’re all part of it, and it is from the pool of the Unregulated Militia that the other militias are manned, though women may evidently join too, since the constitution seems to be gender blind in this regard.

All the Virginia code says about the Unregulated Militia is that it is composed of all able bodied citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia and all other able bodied residents at least 16 years of age and not over 55. And all the governor has to do when the Axis decides to move against us is to designate people in the counties and cities to draft the militia and we’ll be set to move against the invaders.

There’s only one problem. Since firearms are not registered in Virginia, how can the governor call up the militia? How will he know who has guns and who doesn’t? Or what kinds of guns they have? And certainly they’re not “trained to arms.” So unregulated is this militia that he would first have to find the gun owners and then train them. And by that time we might all be doing slave labor in the mines of West Virginia.

But what’s even more interesting is the fact that the right to bear arms is so clearly linked to all these militias that, despite the advocacy of the loonies in the legislature, people over 55 or under 16 have no right whatsoever to bear arms, since they can’t join the militias.

Furthermore, judicial and executive officers of the state, members of the General Assembly, members of Congress and mayors and councilmen in counties and cities are exempt from the militia, so apparently they can’t bear arms either.

What this seems to mean, then, is that all the NRA toadies in the General Assembly who are so hot for packing heat can’t do it, much though they might like to. The only way they’re going to be able to drink and pistolize at the same time is to give up their seats and join the rest of us in the Unregulated Militia.

So, what are we left with in all of this? First, there is no denying that the right to bear arms in the state of Virginia is directly tied to service in a militia. Second, anyone who possesses firearms must be “trained to arms” before he or she can use them. And this training, again, is directly associated with service in the militia. Finally, there are certain age restrictions in force relative to bearing arms. Those too old or too young to serve in the militias have no right whatsoever to bear arms.

Therefore, unless you are a member of the National Guard, the Virginia Defense Force, the Naval Militia or the Unregulated Militia, you have no right to sit in some saloon with a pistol in your pocket. Furthermore, if you are a member of any of these militias and are sitting in a gin mill getting snockered with a pistol in your pocket, you should be shot, because this is just what the Axis of Evil is counting on – i.e., an easy win over Virginia because all her militiamen are boozed to the nines and can’t shoot straight.

February 11, 2003