What if...

…I told you that there was a country on this planet, whereby a teenager can wield an assault rifle, travel a great distance for the purposes of “protecting property” during civil unrest and then kill two people and wound a third and then not face any consequences for so doing. Would you believe me?

The second amendment to the US constitution was made 230 years ago, when maybe private US citizens were still keen to assert the right to defend themselves against anyone hellbent on taking their new-found independence from them (including their own government). Fast forward 230 years and a private US citizen has no more need of an assault rifle – or indeed any firearm – to defend themselves than a fish has of a motorcycle.

Yeah, I co-opted the feminist slogan and updated it. You know why? It’s because things change and if you don’t change and adapt with and to them, you get left behind, holding onto the dusty remnants of an ideal long past its sell-by date. 

The Rittenhouse ruling isn’t the fault of the judge or the jury, it is the fault of a dated and broken legal system (which yet again has shone favourably on a white person) built on a set of ideals in desperate need of an update.

In a desperate segue, I had need to defend myself (see extra) today from the onslaught of the puffa jacket parade which has descended upon the town for the Kendal Mountain Festival (see big tent). 

In the hope of blending in to the massed throng, I felt it best to don all my puffa stuff simultaneously. 

Can’t be too careful…