Throwback Thursday
Meditations On Tool Use
Gentleman needs to make a phone call, and upon finding his cell-phone discharged, he stops at a Stab-and-Grab to use their outside pay-phone.
During the course of his conversation, he is approached by a Socially Disadvantaged Youth, who proceeds to threaten him with a empty bottle of cheap hooch, while demanding the contents of his wallet.
The gentleman -- now the victim -- being well-schooled by the Liberal Media and Little Sarah "One-Note" Brady, immediately hands over said wallet.
Unfortunately, the wallet did not have enough money contained therein to purchase a sufficient quantity of the recreational pharmaceutical of the critters's choice, so the critter crashed the empty bottle into the victim's temple.
Unlike what you see in Hollywood, the bottle did not break. It did, however, concuss the victim enough to drop him unconscious to the deck, where the critter proceeded to vigorously apply his hundred-dollar set of athletic shoes to the prostrate, helpless victim until such time as he grew bored, and sauntered off.
The victim suffered a concussion, a broken jaw and some broken ribs, but he did survive, in such I would guess that he is lucky.
Even more lucky is the critter.
Each person on this little green dirtball only truly has one weapon. One only.
You can take a knife, a sword, a pistol — or even a tactical nuclear device — and none of them are weapons until the wielder of such has the will to use them as such.
There is a Glock 48 sitting on my desk as I write this. That pistol is not going to do a thing until I use it. It will not save my life, it will not save a third parties life, it will not fire a shot until I make the decision to use it to do so.
My mind, your mind -- that is the only true weapon. Everything else is merely a tool, waiting to be utilized in the fashion that you or I or anyone else chooses.
Unfortunately, a large part of our population does not, can not, and will not understand the whole of this concept.
A large part of our population apparently believes that tools such as knives and firearms are possessed of wills of their own, seeking only to go forth and wreak destruction in obedience to some unnatural will, and thus must be legislated and controlled out of existence for The Safety of All.
These folks are dangerous to every thinking person on this world, but are beneath contempt and will not be discussed at this time.
Others of our population apparently believe that only dedicated tools can be used as a weapon. They are willing to fight when necessary, but only with firearms, or blades. Or with specialized equipment.
These folks have a dangerous weak spot. They will fight, but if they are deprived of his dedicated tool -- either by happenstance or by legislation -- they become lost, because they have either forgotten, or have never known, that the mind is the only weapon.
I do not know whether the victim thought that guns, knives, etc., were evil and refused to carry them, or if he felt that he was not allowed his customary tools, and without them, was helpless.
I do know that the attacker -- the critter -- plainly understood that his mind was the weapon. He understood that a tool used to carry liquid (the wine bottle) could easily be utilized to attack, if he chose.
Why was the critter so lucky?
A score of years ago, there was a young man who was a visitor and a stranger to a certain big city. The name and location of this city are not important, what is important is that the people in this city believed -- or had been convinced -- that certain tools were dangerous. Dangerous, apparently, all of their own volition, and thus had arranged to forbid useful knives and firearms -- even going so far as to ban the mere possession of ammunition without a firearm -- for The Safety Of All.
Pfagh.
This young man, as young men will, enjoyed the company of the fair sex, and on this certain occasion escorted a young woman to her home. On this evening, our young man left the home of this lady long after the taxicab that had brought them had departed.
Being youthful, our gentleman decided to walk for a bit, to enjoy the air, so to speak, before seeking a taxi to take him home.
Having walked, our young man found a pay-phone and engaged to call a taxi company, when he was approached by a Socially Disadvantaged Youth, who proceeded to produce a cheap flea-market folding knife and demand the wallet of our young man.
This young man, unlike the gentleman of the beginning of this rumination, ripped the handset and cable from the body of the phone, and then still gripping the handset, whipped the torn end of the dangling metal cable across the face of the critter as hard and as fast as he could, splitting the flesh to the bone.
Using no technique other than that imparted by bloody red fury, the young man lashed the critter twice more across the face and shielding arm with the metal cable before the savagely injured critter managed to flee.
Anything you have is a tool. How you use that tool is up to that weapon between your ears.
Had the first gentleman in the story known this, understood this, and accepted this, it is likely that his attacker would be seriously injured, maimed, or dead now.
Which is the only proper and correct response to brigandage in a sane and just world.
*sigh*
Ian