According to its homepage, the price of a life membership to the National Rifle Association is $1000. According to statistics, the price of subscribing to its membership's mentality could be your life.
I have trouble grasping the fundamentals of the NRA's sequential propaganda; Charlton Heston -- Ten Commandments -- Thou Shalt Not Kill -- Buy a gun. To show that I am not close-minded though, instead of boycotting the organization's perilous principles I am going to acquiesce and actually endorse the use of weapons. Not all varieties, just the bow and arrow.
Unlike handguns, these Paleolithic pull-powered devices make it virtually impossible to commit suicide. To take your own life you would have to launch the arrow straight up toward the sky and then position yourself directly underneath its return to earth. The chances of accomplishing that are similar to that of tossing the plastic ring around the carnival coke bottles, humanly unachievable, especially under the influence of the psychiatric prescription meds that have been suspected of provoking the impulse of self-demise to begin with.
Mugging with a bow is also highly impractical due to the logistics of having to use both hands for the assault leaving none available to seize the prey's watch or wallet. In addition, being confronted by a marauding archer would not only fail to foster fear in the victim, but it may even induce him to laugh at the anachronistic encounter. I would be much more inclined to hand my cash over to a robbing hood wielding a revolver than a Robin Hood pointing a stick.
There are over 800 accidental firearm deaths in our country every year with many of those involving innocent children. I haven't read the studies relating to "Unintended Arrow Syndrome" but I imagine if some incidents do exist they are rarely fatal and considerably less traumatizing. True, an arrow can poke your eye out but, according to my mother when I was a kid, everything can do that.
I could preach to absurdum about the benefits of the bow, that it's difficult to conceal, never questionably loaded, and functionally demanding of skill, but even the Amish would accuse me of being overly archaic right now. Nevertheless, my advocation of archery is no more outlandish than the recent suggestion of firearm fanatics that we ensure the safety of our nation's campuses by arming every student. One visit to a college men's lavatory should debunk that concept because it becomes immediately evident that these kids just don't have good enough aim.
I've heard it said that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" but we can't make it illegal to be a person so we need to improve our methods of regulating guns. Go ahead make my day, because the life you save may be my own.