Second Amendment Rights
Prime Minister Manexposinghimself, who is a huge fan of the United States of America, recently proposed that Shalampax adopt the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution as one of its own laws.
“Because everyone here is too lazy to mount a coup and no other country cares enough about us to attack us — few even know we exist, we have no need for a militia, well-regulated or otherwise, to secure our free state,” said Manexposinghimself. “So that part of the Second Amendment doesn’t affect us. Nonetheless, if we did have a well regulated militia, I’d certainly want them to have the right to keep their arms bare. It gets damn hot and humid here and those well regulated militias do one hell of lot of marching. They’d be dropping like flies if they were forced to wear long-sleeve shirts.”
After he made these comments, it was explained to the prime minister that the word in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is, bear, as in carry, not bare, as in naked, and the phrase is “keep and bear arms,” not “keep bare arms.”
It was further explained to Manexposinghimself that U.S. courts have ruled that the Second Amendment gives people the right to carry guns, whether those people are in well regulated militias or not. And, again according to the courts, the Second Amendment prevents the infringement of those rights by governments, with only very limited “reasonable” exceptions.
On hearing this, Manexposinghimself exclaimed, “Are they fucking idiots? Do you know how many frigging lunatics there are out there? And they want to allow every freaking nut job to buy and carry a gun? I don’t think so! Not in this country. This requires a rethink.”
So, despite earlier indications to the contrary, I wouldn’t count on getting Second Amendment rights here in Shalampax during Manexposinghimself’s term in office. But, rest assured, your right to wear short-sleeve shirts shall not be infringed.
In my country, the black bears and brown bears are nearly extinct because of people clamoring to exercise their right to bear arms. It is quite disconcerting to see people heading off to restaurants for dinner exposing their bear arms willy-nilly.
@David: The issue of black and brown bears’ near extinction certainly bears scrutiny as it is difficult to bear the loss of a cherished species, like the bear. And it is especially difficult to bear when you consider how much pain the mother bear likely had to endure to bear her cubs, cubs that grew into the bears whose arms were sacrificed for people’s fashion sense. Then again, if they enjoy their bear arms, who am I to complain? What has a bear ever done for me?