Gum Control… Your life may depend on it.

Now and again, a story will come across our desk at the Iconoclast that is so serious… so profound… so relevant to our day to day lives… that we are instinctively prompted to shout… “Stop the presses”…we have something important to talk about!

That story is none other than… gum control.

Friends… this subject is so close to my heart… that I can hardly emphasize it too much:

I know, I know… you will say that gum does not kill people… people kill people.

But it is not as simple as that. Gums are a threat to civilization as we know it.

So, when I recently read in USA TODAY recently that Europe is trying to eradicate gum crime, I was absolutely ecstatic

Europe has long been the leader in progressive thinking. Way, way ahead of the rest of the world on so many issues. The Maginot Line is a good example of this leadership… providing almost perfect defenses against almost any conceivable threat that could possibly arise…

Well… maybe that is not the best example…

But gum control is and important issue.

So far as I know, there is no Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the rights of the American people to unconditional access to, use of, and possession of gums of any description… whether it be automatics… or fully automatics… or for sporting purposes… or for self defense purposes… It really doesn’t matter…

Gums represent a serious threat to our civilization and must be reasonably regulated.

The fundamental fact is: the Founding Fathers of this great nation just did not envision the world we live in today. How could they?

How could they know of the vast variety of gums that would come to be available to the American society? Just walk into any Gum Store in America to see the danger. Gums of every description… and for what purpose… why I ask?

How many parents are aware of the dangers and leave gums unsecured and accessible to children?

How many children have to suffer the consequences of parental inattention?

Indeed a tragedy.

But seriously… gum control is probably a better idea than the Maginot Line…

We are talking about “gum” control and not “gun” control. You know, the nasty, sticky, black, gunk, that inconsiderate people spit out on the sidewalks to fowl the environment.

Do you know what we are talking about?

If not… just take a look at any sidewalk anywhere in America. It is an epidemic problem. Think of the germs. Think of the damage to public property. Think of the clean up cost.

Given the magnitude of the problem, obviously there are billions of people who don’t seem to give this problem a lot of thought. These are not stupid people. These are just people who don’t give a lot of thought to what they are doing. It is just like throwing a cigarette butt on the ground… the thinking is that there is no harm done.

Wrong!

Little acts of environmental degradation multiplied by a million or a billion adds up to some mighty serious environmental problems.

So, the Iconoclast gives a tip of the hat and wink to all of Europe for giving some badly needed attention to an important issue.

Seriously…

Maybe not as sexy as gun control… but gum control is still worth talking about. In fact, gum control has long been a topic of serious discussion in in other parts of the world.

To readers of the Iconoclast who come to us for somewhat serious albeit irreverent social-political commentary, and find this apparent tripe about gum control, I offer my apologies.

However, maybe, just maybe, this issue of gum control is not just so much tripe. Maybe we in America should give the issue a moment of meditation before we again fowl the environment by thoughtlessly spitting out that little gob of goo, otherwise known as gum.

The lesson to learn here is that individual citizens can make the world a little better by making very little bitty adjustments in personal behavior. This is only one example. How many other examples can you think of?