"Smoking guns" and the Global Village

by John Thompson

02/10/03

Once upon a time there was a village. It had good neighborhoods and bad ones. Some of the families there were good neighbors; some were poor, and some were just evil.

The village had no policeman, but usually looked to the Eagles, the biggest and strongest family in the village, to help when there was trouble. The Eagles might ask some others (usually people from their own quiet neighborhood) to help out too, though sometimes they wouldn’t.

While many in the village had guns (the Eagles certainly did — though they once had many more), everyone agreed that shooting guns at other people was very bad and it was best to use knives and clubs if any fighting had to be done. Even when people were fighting inside their own houses, nobody liked it if guns were used.

In the Middle of the Eastern Neighborhood in the village, there was Mr. Moustache. He wasn’t the worst man in the village, but he was bad enough. He had guns and shot them at his neighbor to the East, and threatened everyone else nearby. He also shot guns inside his own house. Everyone knew that Mr. Moustache really liked guns, and often let his own children go hungry so he could get more.

Once, after Mr. Moustache had to be chased out of the house of another neighbor, the Village Council agreed it was time that his guns were taken away. They looked all over his house, but Mr. Moustache got in the way, and was always saying that the searchers couldn’t look in the garage, or in the basement, or made other rules. Although many guns were found and wrecked, and the searchers knew more guns were there, they finally got tired of looking and left.

One day, something really bad happened to Eagles. Some rats bit one of their children. While everyone had a small rat problem, this was too much. So the Eagles asked for help from everyone in the village to look for the rats. Almost everyone -- even the Village Council -- agreed this was a good idea — although some people were less eager to hunt rats than others were.

First the rat hunters went to a really ramshackle house in the Eastern Neighborhood and hit many rats with clubs. Many other rats got away, and the rat hunters learned (while making repairs to that sad house) that the rats were trying to learn how to use guns too. This scared the Eagles, because they had a good idea about what rats with guns would want to shoot at.

Now, it was known that Mr. Moustache was fond of rats, and that the rats sometimes liked him as well. This time, Mr. Eagle and his close friends, Mr. Lion and Mr. Kangaroo, decided it was time to see that he really had no more guns and that none of the dangerous rats were hiding in his house. Even the Village Council agreed this was a good idea. But Mr. Eagle and his friends also said that they had enough of Mr. Moustache, and even all the little Moustaches would be better off if he was gone. The Village Council muttered to itself, and said this might be done only if something called a "smoking gun" was found.

As the Eagles and their friends waited outside the Moustache House, some people from the Village Council went in to look for the "smoking gun." Once again, Mr. Moustache kept getting in the way of the search — all the while yelling that it was a lie to say he had any guns at all.

The searchers ignored the starving Moustache children (Mr. Moustache wouldn’t let them eat as much as they should because he wanted more guns so badly), and weren’t interested in his large collection of clubs and knives. But they simply could not find a "smoking gun".

They found empty gun racks, bits of cardboard from ammunition boxes, and stains on the carpet from gun oil. But they still could not find a smoking gun. They found a telescopic sight (which Mr. Moustache said he used to look at the stars), and empty holsters. Once they even found a tiny little pocket pistol, but it was unloaded and wasn’t smoking.

The Eagles, who could look through windows, kept eyeing the suspicious gun sized lumps under the carpet, but Mr. Moustache simply wouldn’t let the searchers look there no matter how much the Eagles screamed about it.

Now the story about the Smoking Gun and Mr. Moustache isn’t over yet, but it is becoming clear to Mr. Eagle and his friends that their village does have idiots, and many of them sit on the Village Council.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca