Ken Buck- Today's Worst Person In The World
How many chickens for your daughter?
So, about the time you might have thought the “I need an AR-15 because….” sweepstakes couldn’t possibly become any sillier, say hello to Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who’s concerned about unnecessary deaths. Not the deaths you might have initially assumed, mind you. No, he’s worried about…wait for it…
Please, think of the
childrenchickens.At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence Thursday, Republican Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.) dismissed a proposal to regulate AR-style rifles, the weapon of choice for mass shooters, as “small-minded.”
Why? Because without them, Buck claimed, ranchers would be completely defenseless against varmint.
“Blaming the gun for what’s happening in America is small-minded,” he said.
“In rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens,” Buck added. “It is the gun of choice for killing a fox, it is a gun that you control predators on your ranch, on your farm, on your property.”
Won’t someone PLEASE think of the poor, defenseless chickens (if not the poor, defenseless 2nd-4th graders and teachers in Uvalde)? If you can’t legally obliterate predators on your ranch with a weapon of war, what does a poor gentleman farmer do for fun, stress release, and recreation?
Of course, one thing left unsaid in Buck’s monologue was the exchange rate between the lives of children and chickens. For the sake of argument, it would be helpful to know how many children the life of a chicken is worth. Then again, perhaps Buck understands the political peril involved in wading into that calculus. It IS a no-win argument, to be sure- but then valuing the lives of chickens over the lives of children isn’t exactly taking the moral high ground.
If it sounds preposterous, that’s because it is. As this NRA story detailing a prolific raccoon hunter makes abundantly clear, a small caliber, lever-action rifle is more than capable of keeping the animal at bay.
Buck’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding how many chickens the life of one child is worth.
Astute readers will recall that Buck has an AR-15 mounted on the wall of his Capitol Hill office. In 2020, he used it threaten Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke. Neither of them are raccoons.
That’s exactly right. A small-caliber, lever-action rifle in the hands of a capable marksman will easily take care of your average raccoon. An AR-15 is only useful if you want to obliterate the poor furball. It will be just as dead, of course, but its remains will be shredded and spread over an area the size of a baseball infield.
Buck doesn’t understand that he made the same argument I’ve long made against AR-15s and similar weapons of war. There’s no reason whatsoever for a civilian to be carrying one. You can’t hunt with an AR-15 because there won’t be enough left of your prey to make sausage. An AR-15 has one purpose- the rapid and violent disassembling of another human being in combat. It will shred a soldier in no time flat, and his compatriots will collect his remains with a trenching tool.
Using an AR-15 to dispatch raccoons from their mortal coil is beyond absurd and barely merits a response, save for the fact that a Congressman saw fit to broach the subject.
Yeah, there’s little doubt that Ken Buck lacks the intellectual agility of your average box of hair.
The good news is that he’s made it so much easier to understand by breaking it down scientifically. We need to protect the chickens from the raccoons. The AR-15 is the best way to do that, so we must not ban the sale or possession of AR-15s. And that’s why our children have to die in classrooms- so ranchers in Colorado can protect their chickens by obliterating raccoons.
Sure, Ken Buck is a 24-karat, first-class, top-shelf, Grade A, USDA Prime tool…but you can’t argue with logic like that, right?
It really IS easier to understand when you break it down scientifically.