ANIMAL RIGHTS (TO BEAR ARMS)

Several weeks — maybe a bit longer — ago, yours truly received in the mail a National Rifle Association Sweepstakes OFFICIAL ENTRY “for my chance to win one of more than 600 prizes” and “help NRA defend my firearm freedoms.” The random drawing has a Grand Prize of 32 guns of my choice….but, being uncertain as to what I would do with 32 firearms (after all, I have only two hands), I temporarily set aside this am-munificient opportunity until I had time to give it my complete and undivided consideration.

Well, you know the old saying— “never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow,” so I must confess that, what with one thing or another, the whole thing kind of slipped my mind until I chanced to turn over an accumulation of put-asides on my desk, and there it was again….but this time, with the December 31 entry deadline less than a week away, further procrastination is inadvisable. Like Superman, I owe it to Truth, Justice and The American Way to act fast — if not faster than a speeding bullet, at least faster than an Act of Congress.

Still, I can’t help but wonder where the NRA got my name as a possible target to aid their cause. I’ve never been a member of their erstwhile organization, never been a hunter….I’ve never even watched “Duck Dynasty.” I admit I owned a BB gun when I was little more than a glint in my father’s steely eyes, but he didn’t let me use it until I was two, and by age four, the thrill was gone. Also, I watched a lot of shoot-’em-ups as a boy, but cowboy movies haven’t really appealed to me all that much since about, say, the early 1950s. In other words, the more I think about it, the more I think someone pulled a fast one on the NRA and sold them a Sierra Club or World Wildlife Fund mailing list.

Now, I’m all for living things being able to defend themselves by any means at their disposal, so I’d like to suggest to the NRA a much greater potential fount for membership expansion: the non-human inhabitants who  share this planet. Think of all the defenseless four-legged creatures out there, not to mention our fine-feathered friends, who could use the same weapons to protect themselves from your human members as your members use to blast them to kingdom come. It hardly seems a fair contest, wouldn’t you agree? So, NRA, here’s your chance to kill two birds with one shot, so to speak: increase your membership by giving the hunted a sporting chance — open your sweepstakes to all, man and beast (there often seems to be little difference between them anyway).

Actually, I’ve discovered that the NRA already has some potential customers ready to jump at the chance to join:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9SWjfAnYuU

Man up and open up, NRA!