Disarm America : Two Easy Steps, 90 Days to 'No Guns'!

Just when you thought that everyone understands that the intellectual argument has been won, along comes a zinger. According to an Op-Ed piece in the Toledo Blade, there is a simple way to disarm the American people:

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

The immediate goal? Gun Free Zones, similar to Virginia Tech, or perhaps the largest of them all, Washington, DC. After an effective sweep, citizens in the area would be subject to random stop-and-searches:

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."

America's long land and sea borders present another kind of problem. It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States. That would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.

We could just tack this task on to our current longest "war," the one on drugs!

The author has reserved a loophole for hunters, who would be allowed to withdraw their rifles from heavily fortified armories during hunting season, after undergoing an annual background check and an on-site psych evaluation.

The author styles himself a retired ambassador. He must have been an undercover diplomat, as neither Google nor the other major search engines know of him.

He denies that he is a "crazed liberal zealot" but he is a member of the paper's editorial board, which indicates otherwise.

It would be good to know to which country he was an ambassador as it might help with the diagnosis of the infection he brought back with him.

Or, perhaps, this is just a Rovian ploy to motivate the gun guys.

If so, it'll do that!

UPDATE: Mr. Simpson was originally a Johnson administration appointee, who served in several African countries, where he apparently developed his fondness for house-to-house searches and command and control governments.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has a telling analogy at The Volokh Conspiracy.

UPDATE: Captain Ed will be discussing Mr. Simpson's disarmament plan for America on AM 1280 The Patriot from 1-3 CT today. Bar your doors, then listen in!