The story the National Cobra Association wants you to hear.
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Just the other day I was talking to this guy over at the Auto Zone and he tells me his place got robbed. “What are you talking about?” I said. “Ain’t nobody going to rob my house. You got to protect yourself.” He said, “Aw, I know nothing about all that and besides if I picked me up a little something the government would be all over me.”
And that’s just what it comes down to these days. A man can’t even buy him a house cobra without worrying about The Man.
Me, I got probably 50 cobras around my place. I keep some in every room and always have two in my nightstand. People say “why you need so many cobras” and I say “why don’t you need more cobras?” That’s what I tell them. And besides, what’s the right number of cobras—three? Twenty? Who’s to say, that’s what I say.
“But isn’t it illegal to have cobras,” some ask me. You show me in the constitution where it says a man can’t keep a venom spitting snake for home protection. I know my rights.
My sister, she’s always trying to make a big deal out of it. “What if they get loose,” she says. Look, I’m not a fool. I keep my cobras locked up safe, ain’t none going to get out except for that one time those three got out on the porch while the mailman was handing me that package. Some people don’t have any common sense. Don’t you know better than to knock on a stranger’s door just to give him a box? He might have a house full of cobras.
Another thing people say is what if somebody comes up and steals one of my cobras. That’s just stupid. First of all, who’s going to steal a cobra, and second I got 49 other cobras to protect that one he’s trying to steal.
“What about kids?” That’s what my mama’s always saying because she’s worried about the grandkids, but listen: don’t nobody get hurt by a cobra unless they want to. A cobra is a tool just like any other. Use it right and nothing bad is going to happen.
And then there’s tree huggers always screaming “where does it end? First it’s a cobra, next thing you know everybody has to have a black mamba or an anaconda.” I say let them. Who are you to tell me I don’t need a 35 foot long eating machine to protect my family?
So I told this guy at the Auto Zone, “You got to get you a cobra or forty and protect your place.” Don’t let nobody tell you you aren’t entitled, because when cobras are outlawed only outlaws will have cobras.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Careful. You might get nightmares.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcv1EhH7Xh0
If gun ownership is so important for public safety, then why doesn’t the government hand out free guns in the most dangerous neighborhoods?
In some senses, though, cobras are actually safer than modern guns. Although a cobra can bite/spit a few times in rapid succession, they are basically single-shot weapons with a long reloading time. Their effective range is somewhat limited, and their penetration power is virtually zero. Drive-by assaults would be virtually impossible, and no one half a mile away will die when you shoot your cobra into the air on New Years’ Eve. It’s really hard to cause mass casualties in a school with a few cobras. Fifty cobras would be like fifty unreliable muskets. To be fair, though, Plaxico Burress… Read more »
Very provocative satire, but you may actually be on to something. The city where I live has passed a law essentially banning businesses from discriminating against people who have “service animals” with them. You can bring an animal into a store with you or on the bus as long as it’s a service animal. However, the law gives absolutely no definition of what counts as a service animal. So….
The dialog was so cute….
Can we expect another piece written in Ebonics?
The educated don’t keep Cobras is the message?
crickets chirping… I’d love to hear a response to these questions.
Ebonics?
Drew, pause a moment and think about this.
what is the difference between some made up hick lingo and that?
This ignores the cause of the bulk of cobra-invoked deaths. Most deadly cobra bites come from hopeless men who encourage cobras to bite them (1). Isn’t that why this site is here, rather than talking about the ethics of cobra ownership?
1 – http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/24/suicides-account-for-most-gun-deaths/
We are very worried about so-called “Assault Cobras.” These are cobras that look scarier than other cobras and are involved in a miniscule minority of cobra involved deaths. I think we mainly worry about them because our political opponents tend to own them and therefore we can play emotional politics about them and feel very good about ourselved while ignoring the majority of cobra involved deaths.
It’s a good thing we have people watching these things: http://www.assaultweaponwatch.com/
I definitely keep a close eye on my “cobras.” They just seem to lie there though.
I think it’d be a better plan to watch this site: http://www.lightingwatch.com
Y’know, because getting killed by an assault rifle is roughly as likely as getting struck by lightning.
…Oh wait, your site has concluded that these statistics are a conspiracy by the FBI. DAMN YOU NWO!!!
Maybe pit bulls are a better analogy? I often hear their (alarmingly common) attacks defended in much the same way as gun rampages — ‘it’s not the dog’s fault. They aren’t born vicious.. it’s learned behavior. So it’s the owner’s fault.’
But they’re so damned hard to stuff into a nightstand….
Well, considering that “pit bull” actually refers to several breeds, and the Pit Bull Terrier has been found to be the second safest American breed, pit bulls would make for a pretty much terrible analogy.
While I know it was a satirical attempt to ridicule guns, it fails not because of the analogy, but because cobras aren’t completely illegal. They’re actually legal in 20 states, and only some species are banned in 7 other states. So you totally could have a house protected by killer cobras depending on where you lived 🙂 The other way the analogy is wrong is because cobras are living things. If you place them down, they will roam around and cause trouble without any help from you. Guns are inanimate objects. There are those of us out here that are… Read more »
It’s also worth noting that it only takes one of any group, regardless of hair color and assuming no less than slightly below average intelligence, to screw in a light bulb. Inflating the number of people required to execute such a simple task is unrealistic and offers a skewed view of reality.
And don’t get me started on that chicken crossing the road.
The fact that cobras are partially legal makes it a better analogy.
The fact that cobras wander on their own is not unlike humans in your home who wander on their own (bad guys, kids, drunk friends) and can pick up your gun.
All good analogies.
Don’t defend the bad analogy Joanna. You’re making it even badder. (Yes, I know it’s ‘worse’) Let the man write a bad analogy. Every argument against gun ownership is not a good one, in fact, very few are. Please Joanna, don’t. I hope this reply doesn’t come across as condescending, although it probably does. I don’t know, you be the judge of that. But please, don’t step in for someone on your team when they make bad analogies, it weakens your case. I’m not even sure why I’m replying here, it shouldn’t be hanging around in comment sections. Cross-bows could’ve… Read more »