Let the record show: I fully support, both conceptually and in action, the right to kill in self-defense. ALL of us have an ABSOLUTE right to protect ourselves against imminent physical threats to family, friends, total strangers, or ourselves.

 

Of course, the threat must be real and present. Our action must be reactive, based on a sense of moral and legal justification, not proactive as a means of avoiding some possible future danger.

 

The bottom line? The police can’t be everywhere! So, we have to have some legal way to protect ourselves against imminent threats to our persons.

 

BUT, what about our rights to protect ourselves from people who do things to us that, while certainly not IMMINENT threats to our persons, may turn out to have been so in the long run?

 

I’ll use driving as an example. Again, for the record, I want you to know that I realize that society must have rules that prohibit drivers from killing other drivers just because they appear to be, well… intellectually anemic.

 

Even WHEN some of those drivers, whose lines of sight fall just below the tops of their steering wheels, are driving in the LEFT lane, at positively glacial speeds, we can’t just run them off the road.

 

Doing so would violate the various states’ aggressive driving laws. The police hate this. They get very snotty about, too. “ROAD RAGE,” they’d tell the judge.

 

Still, though, there ARE drivers—but NEVER us—that zoom right past mere intellectual anemia, headlong into the land of abject stupidity?

 

You know… things like driving for miles with a turn signal on. Or, making US wait behind THEM at the pump-your-own convenience store gas station as they attempt, no less than TWENTY times, to swipe their credit cards... either BACKWARDS or UPSIDE DOWN!

 

And, it does not matter how many times WE tell them how to do it, they’ll insist that they’re following the directions on the pump and proceed to go into the convenience store to tell the manager and buy a cup of coffee.

 

Then, there is my ALL TIME FAVORITE: drivers with their right-hand turn signal on, but will NOT make a right turn on a red light, even though there’s no prohibition AND they’d need binoculars to see the nearest approaching car!

 

Why won’t they make the turn? Who knows! However, STUPIDITY has to be a primary suspect. And, if YOU are one of these drivers, yes, YOU ARE STUPID! Quite possibly brain-dead.

 

We are a country with right-hand traffic, which means that we drive on the RIGHT. We’re also a country that permits people who can’t read, or don’t speak English, to obtain a driver’s license.

 

Mind you, I’m not blaming the drivers who can’t read. They’re not the one’s causing all the hold-ups. Keep reading.

 

Decades ago, our lawmakers changed motor vehicle codes to permit MOST right-hand turns on red lights AFTER a full cautionary stop.

 

They made these changes to avoid unnecessary traffic back-ups in those locations that they deemed it safe to do so. “We do it all for you,” they told the nation’s voters. RIGHT!

 

So, at traffic lights where it’s not expressly prohibited, it is legal to make a right-hand turn in accordance with the rule above—full stop FIRST and then proceed with caution. It’s right there in ALL driving manuals.

 

While manuals clearly explain this, they are useless to those who can’t read them. So, to accommodate such drivers, states use signs, with both written instructions AND symbols, at traffic lights where they want to modify the general rule.

 

Drivers can’t miss them. They’re PROMINENTLY displayed on rectangular white signs with reflective backgrounds for night driving.

 

If a sign reads “No turn on” with a RED arrow pointing to the right just below the words, BUT the traffic light does NOT display a solid RED arrow, YOU MAY TURN, ANYWAY!

 

Even if the traffic light displays a FLASHING RED arrow, you can STILL turn after a cautionary stop.

 

However, if the sign reads “No turn on” with a solid RED circle under the words, AND the traffic signal is solid RED, you may NOT turn until the signal turns GREEN or switches to a FLASHING RED arrow.

 

But, as I wrote above, the drivers who can’t read DO understand the symbols. They are NOT causing the hold-ups. The true culprits are the dummies who CAN read but don’t understand the symbols.

 

Of course, drivers who CAN read need to take some of their precious time to read a motor vehicle manual OCCASIONALLY to realize the code changes made subsequent to their receiving driving licenses.

 

Granted, none of these things poses direct, imminent threats to our lives. But they do pose possible indirect, long run threats; at least I think they do. I’ve also checked around and others feel the same way. Let me explain.

 

These things cause our blood pressure to rise to dangerous levels. We can actually feel the veins in our temples bulging to twice, sometimes three times, normal diameter.

 

Our heartbeats rise uncontrollably. Dagger-like stares shoot from our eyes as one of our forearms rises, fist clenched, middle finger jutting upward, sometimes shaking violently, as our voices and lip movements feverishly express our alarm.

 

Granted, THE jerks can’t hear it, but they can see our facial expressions, hand gestures, and our lips moving. Combined, these things provide a highly animated expression of our concerns.

 

It all boils down to the potential for a stroke or heart attack. In other words, these dumb asses pose a threat! Oh, maybe not today or tomorrow, but certainly SOME day.

 

And, when it happens, we’re going to slump over our steering wheels… DEAD, most likely killing some completely INNOCENT people, ALL because of some selfish, brain-dead morons who won’t read their driving manuals!

 

So, I propose a change in the criminal codes to include a defense similar to “Justifiable Homicide.” We could call it “Justifiable Road Rage.”

 

Such a defense would permit us to pull these people over, rip their hair out in huge clumps, and choke them to death.

 

Or, in the case of those dummies incapable of correctly swiping their credit cards at the gas pump, a Justifiable Road Rage defense would permit us to grab these people by the backs of their heads and slam their faces clean through gas pumps, after the THIRD erroneous swipe. Of course.

 

I’d even include a provision for GOOD drivers—the REST of us—to carry a non-lethal device that we could use to warn the dummies before the fact.

 

I, for example, have a hand-held 300-milliwatt green laser that I built myself. I’ve used it for years during controlled physics demonstrations.

 

Not to worry, the thing certainly lacks the heat energy to vaporize anything or anyone, but it makes an outstanding, very compact cattle prod-type of a device!

 

Now, you folks may wish to use another device, but I could easily retrofit mine to the hood of MY automobile.

 

And, the next time I am stuck at a traffic light behind some clueless yahoo who knows how to read but hasn’t, ZZZZAAAAPPPP! I’m just sayin’…

 

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.