From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books…
Washington, D.C. — The complex negotiations aimed at bringing a long-term solution to the federal government’s expenditure and debt problem have produced an unconventional proposal. “Although the solution only focuses on a tiny fraction of government expenditures,” declared President Barack Obama, “it is a step in the right direction.”
“Moreover,” he added, “it will show the American people that what’s good for them is good for us, too.”
The idea is to defund and abolish the Secret Service, the Capitol Police, and all other police protection privileges enjoyed by high-ranking members of the three branches of the federal government. These forms of protection will be replaced by a simple and efficient measure from which ordinary American have long benefited: gun-free zones.
The enabling legislation — the Stay Unarmed, Coy and Confident in Equal Royalty Act, or SUCCER Act — has now reached the final negotiation stage between the House and the Senate.
The bill has both a conservative and a revolutionary dimension. On the conservative front, the new legislation would simply reinforce the symbolic nature of existing gun-free zones. For their protection, members of Congress would rely on the current Capitol gun-free zone. Similarly, the existing gun-free zone around the White House and the Supreme Court would be maintained. These gun-free zones would be enforced the same way they are enforced for ordinary citizens: by calling the ordinary police if an aggressor penetrates the zone.
Yet the SUCCER Act also contains a revolutionary feature. It would create new portable and mobile gun-free zones for the president, the vice president, Supreme Court justices, and any other member of the ruling class who faces “serious, persistent, and credible threats.” “Portable” and “mobile” are the keywords: These new gun free-zones would follow the protected person in all his or her moves.
For example, the president and the vice president would always be protected by their portable and mobile gun-free zones, which would move with them and guarantee a 30-yard-radius gun ban around them. “Because we need special protection measures,” explained Vice President Joe Biden, “we will get a more personal and dedicated gun-free zone than the general ones that cover ordinary citizens. But at least the nature of our protection arrangements will not be different from what our electors get.”
Conspicuous signs carried by court clowns would clearly identify the mobile gun-free zones.
“This is what I will tell my wife,” added the vice president, who is known for his subtle mind: “If you feel threatened, just deploy your personal gun-free zone around you.” He said that as soon as the SUCCER Act is passed, he will sell the two shotguns he and his wife keep for self-defense.
“If school children are well protected by gun-free zones,” added a White House spokesbeing, “why not provide the same protection to our high officials, with a mobile component added?”
Interestingly, the idea of a gun-free zone to protect the president and the vice president in lieu of their expensive Secret Service details was rejected by the White House just a few months ago. A “We the People” petition with more than 40,000 signatures had been presented to the White House and had to be answered. At the time, the White House rejected the proposal by arguing that the president and vice president need armed protection because they face “serious, persistent, and credible threats.”
The addition of mobile gun-free zones to the general gun-free zones that protect the rulers in their daily working environment seems to have mellowed the administration’s previous resistance.
The fact that politicians often want many supporters around them has not escaped the genius of lawmakers. The mobile gun-free zones for the rulers will include high-capacity mezzanines. In the ordinary, fixed gun-free zones that benefit ordinary citizens, high-capacity mezzanines will remain verboten.
The New York Sex Workers Union (NYSWU) is lobbying Congress against the SUCCER Act, which would lead to the dismantling of the Secret Service and the dismissal of its 4,500 agents. “Any one of these agents,” says NYSWU president Ashley Dupré, “is a potential, if not actual, customer. It is not the time, in the current economy, to destroy jobs, whether full time or blow.”
— Prr Lzkdrqxcwm, The Martian
