Today’s Thoughts on Rubberbands as the New Bullet
April 5th, 2004
I don’t know about you, but when someone comes right up to me with a rubberband cocked and ready, tied around their forefinger and thumb — I reel back out of reflex, cover my face in fear and squint my eyes in terror. I am deathly afraid of getting hit by a rubberband.
Guns and bullets on the other hand…I think I could deal. I mean, how often do you see people get shot on TV, in the movies and right next door to you out on the street. Sure, there’s some wincing going on and a little bloodshed, but really let’s be honest with each other — getting shot by a bullet is far less of a reason to do something illegal than getting hit in the eye by a stinging, flinging rubber band. (And don’t even get me started on those thick mother, huge-ass taffy rubberbands. You know what I’m talking about and I know you are scared just thinking about it.)
Some of you think I’m kidding. I know you are. Some of you are writing it all off as sarcasm. Satire. Sure, but think about it seriously for a second. No one in this world is really afraid of getting shot anymore. I mean, there’s medicine and doctors and very few people die these days from a bullet in the leg or the shoulder. Stray bullets, piercing bullets, etc. Mosquito bites are equivalent to a gun shot.
But getting SNAPPED in the face or the eye or the back of the neck with a rubberband? More painful than one could ever imagine. “These things SMART!”
With all the city police having to cut officers due to budgetary issues, I think this could possibly be the solution. Get rid of the guns, and equip each office with a huge, manufactured for law enforcement only, mother of all rubberbands. Training would be necessary, but we wouldn’t need anything substantial. No delivery devices (a la handguns). Cops could just wrap that huge-ass rubberband around their pointer finger and their thumb, and wield it out in the field.
Trust me, this could really work.
Before long, you’d have Joel Silver and every other huge action-film Producer starting to replace the drug cartels’ and drug dealers’ and mob bosses’ automatic weapons with huge, foreign-funded rubberband weapons. Maaaaan. How cool would that be?
Then, of course, about five years later most of the hoodlums in the country who used to be afraid of rubberbands snapping on their bare skin would be desensitized to it no thanks to the Media, and then we’d eventually just have to find something else that could scare people from getting involved in crime.
At that point, I’m thinking the best way to go would be armor-piercing bullets. Those scare me almost as much as rubberbands.
In the meantime, however, we’d have a window of about five years of rubberband law enforcement, which in my mind, could be really damn cool. And way less loud for those people, livin’ in the shit.
A co-worker of mine actually shot himself in the eye with a rubber band once. To this day no one knows how it happened. But he had to go to the urgent care center to get the eye treated. And we’ve never let him forget.
Comment by Kat — April 5, 2004 @ 7:26 am
I too, carry a mortal fear of snapping rubber bands — it started in junior high, when everyone had those little rubber bands for their braces. Naturally, 12 year olds with rubber bands will use them for their most effective purpose: as weapons.
Comment by C(h)ristine — April 5, 2004 @ 8:32 am
It’s the 12-year olds who should train the police officers when my ingenious plan is implemented country-wide.
Comment by Pauly D — April 5, 2004 @ 10:00 am
Since reading your post this morning, I’ve had the Spinners “Rubberband Man” stuck in my head (and it hurts).
Hey, y’all prepare yourself
For the Rubberband man
You never heard a sound
Like the rubberband man
You’re bound to lose control
When the Rubberband starts to jam
Comment by Jeff B — April 5, 2004 @ 12:41 pm
So, when this whole rubberband thing gets rolling and then is being used by the ‘bad cops’, what’s next? Unnecessary noogy-ing? Wet towel snapping brutality? The deadly wedgy? Or worse… the dreaded nipple twister?
My god, I see the future and it’s one scary place…
Comment by Lena — April 5, 2004 @ 1:26 pm
Worse than the “flying” rubberband attack is the “catapult” rubber band mechanism. Obviously used for close hand-to-hand combat, the “catapult” assualt is accomplished by:
a)stretching the band between the thumb and forefinger on the attacker’s dominant hand
b)then using the thumb and forefinger of the other, available hand to “pinch” the band in the meaty middle
c)stretch it to the point of breaking
d)placing the dominant hand nearest the unsuspecting victims neck/eye/lip/groinal region
e)letting the now taut band go and inflicting massive wounds to the victim.
Comment by a.brain — April 7, 2004 @ 10:39 am
I actually shot a fly in half out of
mid-air with a rubber band of the civilian
type so I know these things are dead-ass
accurate. Enough practice and you can hit
anything with one of these…but then who’s
got that kind of time on their hands…
people that have time to post stuff like
this on web sites that’s who.
Comment by mark smith — June 15, 2004 @ 12:16 am
How about using it in the schools? The kids will not want to look up from the textbooks for fearof the rubber band pointing at them.
Comment by Mr. Moxie — December 5, 2004 @ 9:58 am
I had witneseed this Exuse my spelling
A girl in my class was being bombarted by rubber bands she got a rubber band and pulled a hair pin from her poket she drew it bake and let it go it struck one of the guys in the sholder and he screamed his head off yelling oh my goshh owww
Comment by kevin — January 5, 2005 @ 10:29 am
I’m not going to lie, I am DEATHLY afraid of rubber bands. I don’t think that there’s anything more scary than having someone just point a rubberband your way. I’ve fallen to the floor and cried before. NO JOKE. I don’t know why though. I’m just really really afraid of them!! AND I HATE IT!
Comment by Kat — January 29, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
I’m also very, very scared of rubber bands. I’m convinced it’s a phobia. I can’t be around them unless I’m by myself, and even then I won’t touch them, look at them. I also hate the hair binders… I can’t touch those unless I know I’m in total control. Because of this, I have short hair. I’m pretty sure if the law started to use rubber bands as weapons, I would have to hole myself up in some cave somewhere. NOT a good idea, if you ask me.
Comment by Trisha — March 5, 2007 @ 1:47 pm
I think that comparing bullets to rubberbands is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, I might be commenting late, but this stupid… Come on, Cops with loaded hands, give me a break… Why not use squirt guns full of grape jelly.
Comment by Get Real — June 22, 2008 @ 8:06 pm