S4E7: Nuzzle Velocity (GaPJaxie)
Twilight woke up. She took a shower. She had a nice cup of tea. Spike offered her a second cup of tea, but Twilight wasn’t sure she wanted this to be a wild sort of morning. Sure, she could “throw down” when the call of adventure demanded it, but she wasn’t the sort of pony who cut loose every day.
Water would do, served in a teacup, slightly warmer than room temperature, with a squeeze of lemon for flavor. A family of sparrows was tweeting outside the window when Spike brought it to her, their home gently rocked by the warm spring breeze.
Twilight had just opened the morning paper when there came a knock at her door—a forceful, angry knock, of the sort that might be delivered by a forcefully angry pony.
“Twilight, I got a bone to pick with you!”
The angry pony was Applejack, and when Twilight opened the door, she could see her friend’s rage. She could see it in Applejack’s narrowed eyes, tense posture, quick breaths and folded back ears—in the way she stood in a charging stance and dug at the ground with her hooves.
She could also see that Applejack was strapped to a harness, which was pulling a three-inch muzzle loading cast iron traditional black-powder cannon.
“There’s rumors going around town,” she snapped. “What’s this about I hear about hoity-toity city ponies bending your ear about taking away my guns?”
“Nope,” Twilight said, shutting the door and locking it. Perhaps, she thought, this would be a good morning to fly into town. It would be a chance to spread her wings and jump from her balcony, and perhaps take some time to enjoy being an alicorn.
“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash was on the balcony railing, a pinecone in her teeth and a bandolier of grenades across her torso. “Applejack told me Rarity is plotting to make it illegal for me to drop pinecones on ponies and pretend they’re grenades and also that I can’t own actual grenades anymore even though I never get them mixed up.”
“Nope,” Twilight said, shutting her balcony door. She decided to teleport into town, vanishing in a flash of light.
With a pop, she reappeared in Rarity’s boutique. The blinds were drawn. The interior was dark. All she could see was the gleam of Rarity’s bloodshot eyes, and then Rarity took her by the hoof.
“Twilight,” she whispered, “they’re everywhere. The barbarians are at the gates.”
Slowly, inexorably, Twilight felt herself pulled in. Rarity slid up to her, pushing her muzzle against Twilight’s ear. They were so close that Twilight could feel the moisture from Rarity’s every breath dampening her coat. And into Twilight’s ear, Rarity whispered.
“Think of the children,” she said. “Twilight, we must pass laws. Think of the children.”
There was nowhere to run. The great Equestrian gun control debate had come to Ponyville.
“Oh sure!” Rarity shrieked. “What’s to dislike about guns? In fact, the earlier we teach foals about guns the better. Let’s had them out to every child! Guns for foals. Wee little pistols they can use to shoot at their blocks.”
“Listen here you unicorn carpetbagger,” Applejack snarled back. “This gun has been in my family for four generations, ever since my great-great grandpappy brought it back from the war to use as a varmint gun, and ain’t none of us ever been hurt. Guns are only dangerous when you don’t learn how to use ‘em.”
“A varmint gun?” Rarity somehow managed to give her best incredulous stare while shouting. “It’s a cannon.”
“We live next to the Everfree Forest!” However loud Rarity could yell, Applejack could yell louder. “We get big varmints. Something any real Ponyvillian would know.”
“Any ‘real’ Ponyvillian?” Rarity scoffed. “I was born here you half-wit.”
“Yeah?” Applejack curled her lip. “You sound like you’re from Canterlot.”
“Well thank you!” Rarity snapped the words, stomping her hoof into the dirt. “I worked very hard to cultivate a realistic Canterlot accent. It’s nice to know my work is appreciated.”
“Don’t you go taking my insults as compliments!”
“I’ll interpret your comments through the lens of mutually respectful friendship all I want you ignorant hillpony!”
Then the screaming started in earnest. Nearly three hundred ponies had gathered on Twilight’s lawn, and it seemed they were no longer content to let Rarity and Applejack argue on their behalf. Each one was doing their best to drown out all the others, and the noise washed over Twilight with the force of a physical wave.
The unicorns had brought signs protesting the “gun menace” threatening Ponyville, while the earth ponies had brought their guns. Frankly, if she had to pick sides on the visuals alone, Twilight thought the earth ponies were making a stronger case. Never bring a protest sign to a gunfight.
Regardless, she’d had enough. She spread her wings, lit her horn, and shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Quiet!” Ponies fell silent out of respect for her royal presence, and also because she had magically taken away their voices. She gave their voices back, after a bit.
“I’m not going to negotiate with an unruly mob,” she said, keeping her tone calm and projecting her voice to the back of the crowd. “I want one pony to step forward from each side to make their case. A show of hooves for the side with guns.” Hooves went up, and she pointed. “AJ.”
Applejack was the first pony to step forward. She stood in front of Twilight, and proudly patted the cannon she dragged behind her. “Twilight, this gun has been in my family since the Great War of 822. I’ve cleaned and oiled it every month since I was a little foal. I’ve blown up timberwolves with it, I’ve knocked over walls with it, and it ain’t never hurt nopony. It’s a part of my family history and my way of life, and I don’t see why I should have to give it up because some prissy unicorn got her tail in a twist.”
“I understand,” Twilight said, giving Applejack a firm nod to show she was listening. “Nopony wants to harm your family traditions, least of all me. Are there any other arguments you wish to make?”
“Yeah.” AJ buffed her hoof against her chest. “Because guns may be a proud tradition, but that ain’t all they are. They’re necessary for defending my land. From timberwolves and monsters yeah, but also from other ponies. We earth ponies ain’t got no fancy magic, so if a pegasus starts making trouble, we need tools to reach out and touch ‘em at range. If guns didn’t exist, every earth pony here would own a bow and arrow.”
“Well that seems reas—”
“Also for self-defense around town,” AJ added. “I ain’t never once been mugged while carrying this cannon, tell you that. Criminals respect it.”
After a faint pause, Twilight asked, “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Guns are the average pony’s only defense against a corrupt and oppressive government.” Applejack cleared her throat. “I mean, not that that would ever, you know. With you. But you know. Like if you died and were replaced by like, a totally different pony, or something.”
“Smooth save there.” Twilight sighed, turning back to the crowd. “Okay, I’d like somepony to argue for the side against guns. Show of hooves.” Hooves went up. “Rarity, go.”
Rarity stepped forward, cleared her throat, and drew in a breath. “I understand the importance of tradition,” she began. “I understand the threat posed by timberwolves. And I even agree that you, Applejack, are probably a very responsible gun owner who would never let somepony be hurt in an accident. It’s a compelling case you’ve made, truly. But you’ve lost me on a few of the details. Specifically, I’m wondering why that pony—” she pointed at Carrot Top “—is carrying a literal Howitzer.”
The earth ponies laughed. “Wow,” said one. “You do not know much about guns.” The crowd seemed to agree. Several ponies giggled and remarked that Rarity’s fancy unicorn education didn’t seem to teach her much.
Carrot Top though, found things less funny. “It is not,” she said, reaching back to rest a hoof over her 4.7 inch quick-firing smokeless high velocity direct fire field gun, complete with four-wheeled spring-suspension carriage. “Howitzer is brand, you doof. This is a QF rapid fire Vickers modified to support cordite propellant.”
Rarity rubbed her temples with a hoof. “And what possible difference does that make?”
“Uh,” Carrot Top curled her lip, assuming a condescending tone. “Howitzers don’t come in an anti-air variant, obviously. This gun can fire airburst fuze enabled shells with an effective ceiling of ten-thousand feet, and an effective burst radius of over three-hundred.”
Twilight cleared her throat to get the crowd’s attention. “Why would you need to shoot at targets ten-thousand feet in the air?”
“What if Cloudsdale parked over my farm, and I was all, ‘move’ and they were all like ‘no.’ Then they peed on my farm from the clouds.”
“Hey!” Rainbow shouted from the air. She was hovering over the densely packed crowd, carrying a saddlebag full of what Twilight hoped were rocks. “I’m a pegasus. It’s my right to pee on anything that happens to be below me.”
“See?” Applejack gestured up. “This is why we need guns. Why, I’m hankering to shoot Rainbow right now.”
“Not if I explode you first!”
“Stop it!” Rarity’s voice cracked, and she took a moment to recover her composure. “Applejack, I sympathize with the risk posed by Rainbow’s irresponsible behavior. But perhaps, instead of installing anti-aircraft weaponry on your farm, we could take away her grenades. Maybe even pass a law against pegasi urinating in mid-flight while over inhabited areas.”
“If you take grenades away from all the good pegasi, only bad pegasi will have grenades,” Applejack said firmly. “Besides, how would they stop peeing on stuff?”
“They could hold it in.”
Rainbow made a face. “Ew.”
Twilight sighed, rubbing her temples again as she felt the onset of a headache. But as her eyes wandered over the crowd, she saw Lyra trying to get her attention, waving and jumping up and down. She called upon the Royal Canterlot Voice and spoke firmly, “Lyra.”
The crowd quieted down, and when it was soft enough for her to speak, Lyra cleared her throat. “Um, hi,” she said, a tad bashful. “Sorry, this is just… it’s kind of turning into an earth ponies vs unicorns thing? And that’s super uncool. So, as a unicorn in favor of guns, I thought I should speak up.”
“Proceed,” Twilight said, and the crowd allowed it.
“So, um.” Lyra coughed. “Like most unicorns, I grew up in a house with no guns. And when I married Bon Bon, I asked her, do you have any? And she said she did. She had a 26-tube multiple-launch ‘Land Mattress’ rocket projector with high-explosive airburst flechette rounds. And I was like, that’s crazy.”
“Yes!” Rarity shouted out of turn, “That is actually crazy.”
“I know, right? It was nuts.” Lyra lifted a hoof to her head. “I was like, Bon Bon. Your most likely ground target is Timberwolves, which are nearly totally immune to flechettes. You need incendiary rounds, like napalm or something. So we went shopping as a couple at the Ponyville IKEA, and we found some really nice white phosphorus rounds we could assemble as a couple. It was sweet, and I sleep easy at night knowing if there’s ever an intruder in the house, we can incinerate any target within a two mile radius.”
A long silence hung in the air. Twilight coughed. “So, what’s your point?”
“Guns can be a fun couples bonding activity, and really they’re basically harmless unless you’re a Timberwolf.”
“Lyra, white phosphorus burns so hot it can boil a pony’s blood inside their body. It’s definitely harmful to creatures other than Timberwolves. And, actually, wait,” she spread her wings, narrowing her eyes down at the creature before her, “isn’t using white phosphorus on living creatures a war crime?”
She realized her mistake at once. It was too late. Applejack was already shouting. “Well it wouldn’t be if it weren't for the government getting all up in our business!”
Then the bellowing shouted again. Rarity yelled at Applejack yelled at Rainbow, and all the other three-hundred odd ponies yelled at each other. The headache that Twilight had felt approaching finally appeared, and she settled back on her haunches with a groan.
“It doesn’t matter what I say, does it?” she asked the sky. “Gun owners aren’t going to give up their guns. There’s enough of them I can’t make them. Rarity’s crew isn’t going to give up either because they think guns are a threat to their safety. And so both sides are just going to keep shouting at each other. Forever.”
“Oh yeah?” Applejack screamed. “When was the last time a gun ever hurt anypony, huh?”
Rarity snorted like a charging bull. “Seventy-two ponies were killed by guns last week.”
“Wrong! They were killed by the ponies holding the guns. Checkmate!”
Twilight’s face twisted into a grimace, and through her teeth, she laughed. “I would give anything,” she said, “if it would end this stupid debate.”
As she spoke, the sun moved behind a cloud, and all the world passed into shadow. The birds ceased to chirp, dogs ceased to bark, and cats fled from the surface and vanished into their nooks and crannies. Even the air itself became sharp, and a sudden chill wind blew through the crowd.
“Oh.” Starlight Glimmer whispered into Twilight’s ear. “Are we talking about politics?”
Twilight shrieked, leaping away from the source of the noise. She scrambled a few steps across the castle lawn, hooves jumping over each other, before she finally recovered enough of her wits to stand tall. There was Starlight beside her, the softest of smiles upon her face.
“Where did you come from?” Twilight asked, turning to look over the crowd. They weren’t shouting anymore, nor moving. They seemed frozen in time, trapped in that moment when she had spoken so unwisely.
“Perhaps I walked out of the castle,” Starlight said. “Or perhaps I teleported next to you.”
“You definitely didn’t. I would have heard that.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me.” She giggled, sliding up to Twilight and nuzzling against her side. “But I heard you. And I couldn’t agree more. This debate is so tiresome. Let’s fix it.”
“You can’t fix debates.” Twilight swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “They’re a healthy part of the political process.”
“Really? You think this is healthy?” Starlight gestured at the mob, and Twilight saw them. How sharp their glares were, how low their wit, how hard their hooves, and how quick their limbs to action. “You could be inside right now. You could be reading.”
“There’s no alternative.”
“Oh,” Starlight’s grin widened, and she squeezed Twilight tight against her. “But there is. With the power of political theory, you can win every debate. You can always be right. You’ll discover that complex social problems actually have simple, decisive answers. You’ll have this nonsense wrapped up before lunch.”
Starlight’s skin felt like oil, her mane like a cloud of smoke. Twilight coughed and spluttered, barely managing, “Let go of me.”
Starlight didn’t let go. Rather, she simply was. Specifically, she was three feet away, her hooves folded like she was the most innocent thing in the world. “Oh, you don’t consent to being touched. Well I have to respect that. But how do we handle the edge cases?” A thought occurred to her, and she drew in a gleeful breath and grinned. “Do you want to talk about formal legal definitions of informed consent? I bookmarked over three-hundred HayTube videos on the subject. Don’t worry I’ll send you all of them.”
“No. No, I…”
“Oh, of course. Silly me.” Starlight gently smacked her forehead, her giggle as light as a sparrow. “We can’t reach a consensus on enforceable definitions of informed consent until we’ve reached a consensus on the definition of political consensus and recognition. I have some authors you’ll love.”
“I don’t want this leave me alone.”
“You’re presiding over a public debate, Twilight. If you want me to leave, all you have to do is tell them, ‘I want to talk more about gun control.’ And they will. You’ll get to hear their arguments over and over again. So say it.”
Twilight said nothing. The shadows around Starlight deepened. Her smile though, grew wider, shiny white teeth contrasting with the dark pits around her eyes. “Say it.”
“I…” Twilight gritted her teeth. She looked at the crowd, and at her library, and thought about that second cup of tea. “I…”
Then she squeezed her eyes shut and snapped: “Sweet Celestia, I just want it to end!”
“Then by my power,” Starlight said, resting a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, “and your will, I become your political advisor.”
Then the mob was shouting again. Twilight opened her eyes to discover she was sitting before them again, Starlight by her side. “As Twilight’s advisor,” Starlight said, “I think we should consider what’s best for Equestria.”
Her voice chilled the crowd into silence. Rarity and Applejack each looked up, and all their followers as well. “It’s…” Applejack paused. “Don’t you think about taking my rights away for any of that equalist nonsense.”
“Creating a better world doesn’t mean less guns,” Starlight said, her voice sweet like flowing syrup. “After all, for many ponies, firearms are the only way to achieve equality with the pegasi. You said that yourself, didn’t you? So don’t guns makes us more equal?”
“That’s uh…” Applejack coughed. “That’s right.”
“And the threat of violence is a subtext to so many interactions,” Starlight went on. “For instance, Twilight would never threaten a pony, but surely when you speak to her, it has occured to you she could crush your head like a melon with a thought.”
“I didn’t think about that before,” Applejack mumbled. It seemed quite a few earth ponies agreed, an uncomfortable rumble passing through the crowd.
Starlight made a beneficent gesture, sweeping her hoof over the scene. “See? Guns even the power balance between earth ponies and pegasi, pegasi and unicorns, unicorns and earth ponies, and even alicorns and the rest of us. They’re not tools of violence, they’re tools of reassurance, that help us live in a more civil and just society.”
“Well… yeah!” Applejack nodded firmly, and most of her followers did as well. “Wasn’t expecting us to be on the same side of this. But yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
“So, if we’re all agreed,” Starlight beamed, ignoring Rarity’s worried look, “I move that firearm ownership should be the inalienable right of every creature in Ponyville.”
“Yeah!” shouted AJ and her crew.
“And further, I move that to protect this right, we should labor as a community to teach responsible gun ownership to those creatures whose traditions are most threatened by unjust laws.”
That got the earth ponies going. They were shouting, hollering, applauding, stamping their hooves. “Yeah!” Then Starlight finished her thought.
“Starting with the zebra!”
The applause stopped at once. Silence hung over the crowd. Rarity sat there with an expression of silent panic, while AJ could only whisper, “What have I done?”
“N-no,” said Carrot Top said. “I mean, what? No. How can they be oppressed? There’s so few of them..”
“That’s exactly why they’re so threatened.” Starlight’s smile slowly faded, drawn out into something flatter, something sharper. She showed her teeth. “They’re a minority group, surrounded by a system that doesn’t respect their traditions and norms. They need the ability to contest the government’s monopoly on violence. That’s why every week, I pull a cart down to zebratown and hand out AK-47s to any zebra who wants one.”
She pointed into the distance. “Here they come now.”
Twilight lurched to her hooves, spurred into action by the sudden appearance of another crowd up the street. Fifty zebra, all of them armed to the teeth, came around the bend from sugarcube corner. A few of them held protest signs too. The crowd staggered backwards, ponies shouting and tripping over each other to get away.
“How!?” Rarity hissed. “Ponyville doesn’t even have that many zebra.”
“It’s the stripes,” Applejack hissed back, her entire body tense. “They all look the same, so you can never tell how many of them there are. We have no idea how many zebra really live in Zecora’s hut. It could have been a different one every time.”
“There is no need to tremble,” said the zebra at the front of the crowd, “we are here to peacefully assemble. And if our weapons make a sight, it is to assert our right. This is all we wish to do: say we we are Ponyvillians too.”
The ponies of Ponyville looked at the zebra’s protest signs. They were mostly pink and blue, and covered in messages about equal rights and rhyming education in schools.
“Well,” Applejack said, “I think this is a downright threatening display, and unhealthy in any society, and I move that Ponyville should have a law against carrying guns in public!”
“Seconded!” Rarity cried.
The vote carried by an overwhelming majority.
Twilight decided she’d have that second cup of tea after all. She finished reading the paper. Then she wrote a letter.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that laws can be racist even if they don’t explicitly mention
Today I learned that politics is the legal organization of hatred, which
Today I invoked a pact with an eldritch being to get out of a boring discussion
Today I learned never to take Starlight’s advice on anything.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
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edge cases: the satanic fractal realm where rationality goes to die
With that, the problem was solved completely, and for the next forty years there were absolutely no more arguments about gun control and it did nothing to reinforce any already troublesome precedents at all. Great job, Glimmy!
Beautiful.
Oh… dear… what.
Also, was “black-power cannon” intentional given what happens later?
I… don't know what I expected, really.
Get your damn dirty ape politics off my Equestria!
That being said, there is some sense in doing more about the Everfree and it's unpleasant fauna. Perhaps they can build, say, a wall?
I'm sorry, can I get a short, real world err human side version of this? I'm trying to translate from pony to stupid...
Congratulations. You've managed to piss off EVERYBODY
A wild Malcom X has appeared.
You made two mistakes here...
And then these two.
9802550
9802430
Everytime I read these comments I'm like "Man, Jaxie better fix that fast."
Then a few minutes later I realize I did a dumb and fix it myself.
Oh, good gravy. You managed to use gun control in a MLP story and make it funny! Amazing job. 21 gun salute here.
This is full of beautiful words and ideas all firing at each other, and I would fave it so hard if I could. Thanks for the laughs!
This story has an ever-more-terrible beauty with each passing chapter.
Also kudos to Dash for not getting her grenades and pinecones mixed up. A responsible grenade owner.
I wonder how Pinkie and her cannon stand in all this?
9802460
If you’re not familiar with the eternal US gun control debate, you can waller through that manure pile yourself. The end is (presumably) referencing the Black Panthers — a Black Nationalist movement most active in the late ‘60’s and ‘70’s. One of their tactics was to go to government buildings to protest while heavily armed — asserting their Second Amendment rights.
Coincidentally, around that time many states suddenly thought “Gee, fellows, it suddenly occurs to me that openly carrying firearms is actually super dangerous! For the life of me, I can’t imagine how this fact has escaped us all for so long! We must rectify this immediately. For the children.”
tl;dr, Many right wing Americans are super stoked about guns so long as white people are holding them.
9802656
Concisely summarized.
Equestria actually has slightly better justifications than our world for heavy weaponry. I'm surprised we didn't hear about 30-50 feral hodags.
I love this
9802375
Boundary conditions: the bane of analytical physics.
"three-inch muzzle loading cast"
"three-inch muzzle-loading cast"?
"this about I hear about hoity-toity"
"this I hear about hoity-toity"?
"Let’s had them out to"
"Let’s hand them out to"? Or possibly "Let’s hoof them out to"? :)
"ceiling of ten-thousand feet"
"ceiling of ten thousand feet"?
"of over three-hundred"
"of over three hundred"?
"targets ten-thousand feet"
"targets ten thousand feet"?
"Then the bellowing shouted again."
"Then the bellowing started again."?
"Don’t worry I’ll send"
"Don’t worry, I’ll send"?
"No. No, I…"
"No. No, I--"?
Not sure you actually did mean the latter, but I thought I'd check.
"“N-no,” said Carrot Top said. “I mean"
"“N-no,” Carrot Top said. “I mean"?
"so few of them..”"
"so few of them.”" or "so few of them...”"?
Oh dear. That's awful. :D
(The content. The chapter was great. :D)
Rainbow Dash would be the kind of pony to own a bandolier of grenades.
Couldn't she use fake grenades that military uses for training instead of both real grenades and pinecones? (after repainting them for better effect)
Wise choice!
thumbs.gfycat.com/MisguidedAbsoluteFoxterrier-size_restricted.gif
media2.riemurasia.net/albumit/m34359/1968680859.jpg
All grenades fall down (gravity!)
And those zebra's reaction to that was "well, the law is the law", obviously?
The lesson we can all take from this is not about Gun Control, not about Pegasui or Earth Ponies or Unicorns, but that Starlight is scary as. Twilight and pals don't turn villians into friends because they like friends. They co-opt them so that when the Apocalpse occurs, they'll smile and nod, and then point Starlight et al at the enemy, and will be home for dinner.
9802656
Ahhh... U.S. history at its finest.
If only they'd simply stuck with pies.
As a gun nut, I say this was both poignant and hilarious.
I liked this one. It reminds me of how to shut up social darwinists. Oh you like the idea of those at the top being able to do whatever they want to those below? Well let's put someone else far above you and see how you like this theory now.
The analogy doesn't really work here, and the narrative trivializes how, in a more "Earth-like" setting, if the pegasi and/or unicorns did decide to exert their will, the earth ponies (and zebras) couldn't stop them without guns (versus a pure Equestria setting, where they could stop them by just asserting how not nice they were being).
But it's still pretty good.
9802656
You were doing so well until the end bud.
Now before I get into this, let it be known I’m not doing this out of anger or spite, merely out of clarification and counter argument
Saying that many right wing Americans are only stoked about people having guns so long as they’re white is nothing more than jumping to conclusions, which ends up harming your argument in the long run. Most people who support gun rights care none about a gun owner’s race, only whether or not they have the knowledge to use it responsibly.
If I misunderstood your intentions, then I apologize. But I can’t stand when people try to insert race in an argument about guns, as the correlation people make between the two are incredulous at best.
9803397
Many people would dispute this assertion.
Without getting into the details of if this is right or wrong, a lot of people -- particularly people on the left -- believe that the link between guns and race is a major factor in why people vote for expanded gun rights.
9802874
Those grenades are heavy enough to hurt someone.
9803555
While people may believe that, I personally don’t. Those who make such an argument are judging based on emotion, which on any decision, let along a political one, can often lead to disaster. People often make these statements of racein this argument, in any argument really, to essentially put their dissenters into a lose lose situation: if they try to argue it, they’re considered racist, and any future arguments made of that side become furthered marred in an already dangerous precedent. But if they concede in any way, nothing gets accomplished.
It should also be noted that, in my experience at least, Many people against gun rights make the claim of race correlation because they have no other leg for their argument to stand on. Because if you were to look at the studies made by the CDC (an organization all sides of the political spectrum agree to be a credible and impartial source), the data from them have shown that stricter gun control could lead to more crime. Studies made by the CDC have shown that, while an average of 300000 crimes a year involve the use of a gun, they have also shown that there is an estimate of between 500000-3million instances of a crime being stopped by the presence of a gun (ie the gun was drawn from its holster, but not fired.)
Look, I don’t want this to turn into a rant between two ideologies. If you believe that, I understand and accept. May not agree, but I understand what you’re saying.
Sorry in advance if I may have offended in any way.
Edit: I also want to add that there is a difference in believing something to be true, and it actually being true. Unless there is concrete evidence to support the claim between race and gun rights, it’s unfortunately gonna have to stay as an opinion, I’m afraid.
Again, not trying to upset anyone, just needed to be said for the sake of clarification and counter argument.
9803749
I understand that. I'm not seeking to convince you otherwise -- only pointing out that a lot of people believe that, and so calling that point of view irrational, emotional, or ignorant is more likely to start fights than to persuade anyone.
If you want to have a substantive discussion about gun control, I'm happy to take it to PMs.
9803397
First, I thank you for for making your arguments with a clear head and a calm tone. It’s sad that that’s become such a rarity these days — from either side of any argument — that common courtesy and mutual respect merits any sort of mention.
No. You did not misunderstand my point. And I really don’t see how I’m jumping to conclusions. We’d had two centuries of riots and insurrections — often armed insurrections. But it wasn’t until Black nationalists began asserting their rights to bear arms that there suddenly appeared a widespread political movement to ban open carry. A movement originating from the right-wing.
The Panthers were not violent terrorists. There are no bombings attributed to them. They gave free breakfast to children, gathered for peaceful (if armed) protests, and monitored local police while preventing them from abusing their neighbors.
Now, of course no one was saying (publicly) that the goal was to stop organized blacks from arming themselves. But that shouldn’t be surprising. By the mid-70’s the right had been been practicing the dog whistle for several years and were damn near virtuosos.
Jesus Lyra, anyone who ever played Spec Ops the Line knows you never use the white phosphorous!
Does Equestria have laws on private ownership of surface to air missile systems? Cause ten thousand feet seems like too low a ceiling to stop a pegasus with, err... good aim. Or laser guidance.
Starlight: "Empathy is mandatory and will be enforced."
9803567
I suppose for someone who pranks folks by lobbing pretend-grenades at them that would barely make a significant concern
9803795
Well, that could possibly be related to the fact that those guys were systematically asserting their rights in close geographical proximity to where very high-up government asses are sitting
Although, a tiny bit of racist rhetoric may be handy for arguing that to general population.
Starlight's entrance in this chapter is the best Starlight thing I've ever read. The most Starlight thing, too.
Not much to say on this one, other than I laughed a lot. I’m not going to even begin to broach my opinions on gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment. That way lies madness.
So Starlight has gone beyond mere evil and become the Devil itself. This is a more logical evolution of the character than the show gave us.
I’ve never been more convinced and saddened that Rarity could probably be convinced to vote for Ronald Reagan.
Have to say that I was expecting Starlight to arm the Timberwolves as they seemed most encroached by gun policy. Silly me for not expecting this fic to take the metatextual route
9804026
I'm not positive Timberwolves are living creatures, and undead and spirits whose sole purpose for existence is to embody cruelty and strife do seem to be where Equestria draws the line on caring about method... but no, that actually reinforces your point. If you don't use white phosphorus on living creatures, you double don't do it on entities like that.
So it IS possible to make political controversies this funny, more than once.
Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,
Owner of a native press, "Barrishter-at-Lar,"
Waited on the Government with a claim to wear
Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.
Then the Indian Government winked a wicked wink,
Said to Chunder Mookerjee: "Stick to pen and ink.
They are safer implements, but, if you insist,
We will let you carry arms wheresoe'er you list."
Hurree Chunder Mookerjee sought the gunsmith and
Bought the tubes of Lancaster, Ballard, Dean, and Bland,
Bought a shiny bowie-knife, bought a town-made sword,
Jingled like a carriage-horse when he went abroad.
But the Indian Government, always keen to please,
Also gave permission to horrid men like these -
Yar Mahommed Yusufzai, down to kill or steal,
Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer, Tantia the Bhil;
Killar Khan the Marri chief, Jowar Singh the Sikh,
Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat, Abdul Huq Rafiq -
He was a Wahabi; last, little Boh Hla-oo
Took advantage of the Act - took a Snider too.
They were unenlightened men, Ballard knew them not.
They procured their swords and guns chiefly on the spot
And the lore of centuries, plus a hundred fights,
Made them slow to disregard one another's rights.
With a unanimity dear to patriot hearts
All those hairy gentlemen out of foreign parts
Said: "The good old days are back - let us go to war!"
Swaggered down the Grand Trunk Road into Bow Bazaar,
Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat found a hide-bound flail;
Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer oiled his Tonk jezail;
Yar Mahommed Yusufzai spat and grinned with glee
As he ground the butcher-knife of the Khyberee.
Jowar Singh the Sikh procured sabre, quoit, and mace,
Abdul Huq, Wahabi, jerked his dagger from its place,
While amid the jungle-grass danced and grinned and jabbered
Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared his dah-blade from the scabbard.
What became of Mookerjee? Soothly, who can say?
Yar Mahommed only grins in a nasty way,
Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is mute.
But the belts of all of them simply bulge with loot.
What became of Ballard's guns? Afghans black and grubby
Sell them for their silver weight to the men of Pubbi;
And the shiny bowie-knife and the town-made sword are
Hanging in a Marri camp just across the Border.
What became of Mookerjee? Ask Mahommed Yar
Prodding Siva's sacred bull down the Bow Bazaar.
Speak to placid Nubbee Baksh - question land and sea -
Ask the Indian Congressmen - only don't ask me!
--"What Happened"