An important one-sided conversation about a genuine issue

By Ed Goldman

It’s not exactly an onomatopoeia. That’s a word that sounds like what it’s depicting, like “sizzle” or “plop”— and not, despite how it sounds when spoken aloud, what two-year-old boys yell to their mothers when nature calls and they can’t quite reach the doorknob on the closed bathroom door.

Yet “grapple” still evokes imagery of animals in close combat, like wild bucks tangling up their antlers in each other’s. Can’t you hear it? Grapple, grapple.

It’s also a good word for what members of the United States Supreme Court do as they wrestle their way to the complete cessation of gun control laws. Recently, the Gang of Nine even referenced an English law from 693 years ago (that’s almost 84 centuries in wild-buck years).

“The Supreme Court is preparing to decide whether the Second Amendment gives Americans a right to carry a loaded gun when they leave home—and some justices are looking back to the England of 1328 for an answer,” according to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times. 

This is a pretty neat trick, considering the first firearm was invented 36 years later (in 1364) by the Chinese, according to various sources— as well as this column’s very senior firearms historian, Ivana Hughes-Blanks.

In light of the murder of schoolkids, postal workers and next-door neighbors, I’d say I’m not sure why this argument about gun laws persists. But you and I know the multi-pronged answer to that: (a) gun manufacturers; (b) gun owners; and (c) the lily-livered, money-grubbing, largely amoral gasbags we elect and re-elect to public office year after year. (Please be assured that the preceding sentence was bi-partisan, multi-partisan and possibly trans-partisan. I hope that covers and annoys everyone.)

Well, if we’re bound and determined to hang onto ancient British law when it comes to the “right” to bear arms, maybe we should just admit we made a mistake in 1776 by declaring our independence from British rule and start accepting some of the customs and traditions we rejected. These would include:

• The right to skip dental appointments for the rest of our lives;

• The right to prefer scones over bagels, bangers and mash over burgers and fries, a boring British actor like Colin Firth over an obnoxious American actor like Adam Sandler, and “telly” over “idiot box”; 
• The right to see as a superior world leader a nonagenarian woman with a handbag welded to her forearm and 36 Corgis rather than a septuagenarian man with obvious hair plugs and no internal censor;
• The right to deliberately mispronounce French words and wear plaids, stripes and polka dots simultaneously;
• The right to misspell words like “honour,” “colour,” “realise,” “tyre” and “tunne” while pairing plural verbs with singular nouns (as in the Brits’ version of the classic American tune, “Hail, hail, the gang are here”);