On the Kennesaw Gun Law, Unwanted Mustard and the Old West

Mutual assured destruction is the system we used with Russia for years. It wasn’t perfect, but they weren’t jumping on our friends, knowing we would, figuratively, take em out behind the barn and tan their hides.

Along the same vein, Kennesaw, Ga. passed a law in 1982 requiring every head of household to own a gun—this in response to Morton Grove, Ill. passing a total gun ban that year. The nation prepared for a resurgence of the old west in Kennesaw. Predictions were made of the shoot outs and deaths to come as the citizens of Morton Grove prepared for a life of peace and harmony.

Twenty-nine years have passed. The crime rate in Morton Grove has grown by 15% as the population dropped. In Kennesaw, the population has grown six-fold, but can claim being one of the few places in America where the crime rate dropped. Not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting as a victim, attacker or defender. Try to get your mind around that. It’s a pretty good case for taking all the guns from the equation, right?

I can tell you what causes much of our problems. It’ll get me in trouble, but it's okay—I stay in trouble. When we took the "I’m going to take you out back and beat the tar out of you" from the equation, the world was doomed. When we were kids, if you were walking down the middle of the street, someone else’s Dad might pull over, beat the tar out of you and make you understand just how stupid that was. Now, kids will walk in the road and look at you like you're crazy for expecting them to move. Really, they don’t have the sense to get out of the road, and if you try to educate them, they will convey to you their total lack of caring with nasty words and sign language. They now have a class in the first grade which teaches them not to care, how to call the police if you try to make them care and how to call social services if their parents attempt it. A child who cares is rare indeed.

Now, those kids have started becoming adults. After getting everything they desired while growing up, it’s hard to adjust to having to work and do without as a young adult. Service has gone out the window. You can ask for something without mustard in a fast food restaurant, but don’t actually expect to get it. You can ask repeatedly, and they take it as some sick challenge. If you ask more than once or get excited when they ignore you, well then you get to meet the manager.

Managers in fast food, convenience stores, auto repair shops, places where you pay bills or government agencies are there to handle the multitude of complaints generated by the multitude of worthless employees who cause them each day. If you’re not happy with the manager’s resolution, which is doled out with equal amounts of nasty sarcasm, well then you get to meet with the nice policeman, who is just the next step in the complaint department.

At this point, it would be advisable to just learn to eat mustard or get used to getting your card hit twice for your hot dog. Hey, paying 15 bucks for two dogs and a coke is bad enough, but paying 30 is crazy. Still, it’s better than a night in jail.

There is something to be said about the days when everyone carried a gun. When you walked into a saloon and ordered a sarsaparilla, by George that’s what you got and it was served with a smile. No one was going to insult your best girl, or be leanin' on your horse when you came out. Back then, the gunshot was 911 and the sheriff arrived to supervise the removal of the body. If you were wrong, that was why the sheriff had a gun too.

There was a time when the person behind the counter knew they had to treat the customers with respect or suffer the consequences, namely being taken out behind the barn, right there in the store. Now, they don’t care what you want, how long it takes for you to get it or if you ever come back again.

We speed toward martial law—only it’s not called martial law. The police, the criminals and the people who don’t want to work have more rights, and we have less—the situation continues to worsen. The system must evolve to try to compensate for the total lack of respect, concern or anything resembling common courtesy. Yes sir, once you took out the "I’ll take you out back and tan your fanny" from the equation, it’s been all downhill.