A parable...

I was walking down the sidewalk today, and I met a man going the other way. He was carrying a hunting rifle, and he was carrying it crosswise, taking up the whole sidewalk.
As I approached, I stayed on my side of the sidewalk, but he didn’t move his rifle to let me pass, so I stopped. The man with the rifle stopped too, and appeared angry.

“Get out of my way! Can’t you see I have a firearm?!” he jeered.

I saw a bumper sticker once that had a message I really agree with, being an idealistic type. It said, “Just ignore your rights, and they’ll go away.” I knew quite well that I had a right to walk on the sidewalk, whether I had my firearm with me or not, and I told the man this, and I didn’t move.

He was very irritated, blustering about how powerful the weapon was, how it gave him the power to kill me then and there if he pleased, and pointing out that the safe thing to do would be for me to stay out of the way in case it accidentally discharged. Couldn’t anyone in their right mind see that I, an unarmed human being, had less right to the sidewalk than he did, by merit of his rifle? He finished his tirade by pointing out that HE pays taxes on his rifle and ammunition.

I countered by pointing out that it is the human being, not the rifle that they carry, which has rights, and that all people have the same rights in this country. In rebuttal to his nonsense about the taxes, I pointed out that I have a hunting rifle of my own, which I pay taxes on, although I was not carrying it at the time, and I pay all the other taxes that every other citizen does, including the income taxes, property taxes and sales taxes which the government uses to build sidewalks.

Unable to cow me into submission, the man, now red-faced with rage, stalked around me and continued on his way, still confident that his rifle somehow made him a superior citizen.

Can anyone identify with the man carrying the rifle in my parable? Probably not. But Dimitri Vassilaros evidently feels this way about getting into an automobile and encountering bicyclists, judging by the opinion he posted at http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/trib.../s_82631.html. Sad.