Cecil and I like playing cowboys and Indians. For years he’s been creeping up behind me, (Indians are sneaky on that sort of thing), and plugging me full of rubber arrows. And then, this is the worst of it, he stakes me out in the paddock so that the vultures can peck my eyes out. Just before the odd sparrow or magpie, (they’re stand-ins for vultures) lands, I cunningly, cut myself free, creep stealthily to his wigwam and plug him full of lead. 

We’ve been playing cowboys and injuns ever since we went to the Dimboola Empire  and saw John Wayne in a double matinee. From thereon it was simple, our destiny lay in fighting lawlessness, and performing acts of derring-do for defenceless nubile maidens. 

Sadly though, I haven’t been able to get caps for my Roy Rogers six shooter since they banned toy guns as being ‘dangerous and manifestly anti social’. We couldn’t see what the fuss was about.

That’s me on the left, always played the injun.

But Cecil said it was the final straw. It was bad enough when they banned crackers cos some fool kid blew his fingers off.  That was just Social Darwinism, but when they banned Guy Fawkes night, that was the straw that broke the proverbial camels back. We’ve been fuming ever since. Worse since they replaced Guy Fawkes with that syrupy commercialised sap they call ‘Halloween’. ‘Trick or treat’? 

‘I’ll give you a treat allright’,  as Cec kicked the dunny door in, chucking a molotov cocktail for good measure and blew the bloody thing to bits. 

But this ban of percussion caps for toy pistols has got us beat. 

We thought and thought, 

Then we had this brilliant idea. 

preparing to fight off lefty gun control do-gooders

Why don’t we set up a political party and promote this singular issue? With a bit of luck and help from some powerful friends, establish ourselves as a conservative fringe group that could, may, might, hold the balance of power in the Federal Parliament? As Cec said; “Let’s stuff em, and put the wind up all those do-gooder, lefties and puritans we keep on importing into the country”.. 

But, no sooner had we hit upon this brainwave, and no sooner had I begun to polish the mechanism of my trusty die-cast Colt 45 with the sheriffs badge embossed on the stock, that we realised we were in big trouble. 

In order to be a political party we needed heaps of money, 

And though money may not buy you love, if you’re seeking to reform a crazy do-good, nanny state toy gun and cracker night embargo which some fool made LAW, you re gonna need a lot of money and big influence. 

That’s the we hit upon a big idea. 

“Let’s fo got America, where the ability to kill, maim, and destroy is a fundamental human right, and see if we can get some of their big end of town corporations to fund our fight in the Australian political maelstrom”. 

No sooner that you could say ‘Guy Fawkes’, we‘d raided mums superannuation fund, and found ourselves in Arizona of all places talking big with Mr King of ‘Kingko Toys’ and ‘Militaria R Us”, and Mr Bang from “Bigger Bang Fireworks” and they agreed to help us. Incidentally, all the big names in toy guns and crackers are men. We felt reassured cos John Wayne was a man also. And boys who don’t like six shooters and cracker night are just sissies. That being a fundamental principal of our party platform. 

Now we look like a pack of mugs, done over by a lefty do-gooder controlled media.

Things looked good till we found out subsequently after spending a riotous night at Caesars, that were were being filmed by a member of the “Toy and Replica Gun Control Group”. Our nemesis. He put our night out on Facebook. Since then we’ve been unfairly ridiculed. It was a setup. All we wanted to do was ensure Australians felt safe with ready access to a replica colt 45 or lever action Winchester. In case of Injun attack.   

Now our political campaign is in ruins. People reckon we’re “puerile, penis fixated little boys who’ve never grown up”.  As Cecil said; “its the lefty do good media again, taking away all the fun”. He’s seriously hurt, and has a new plan. 

To follow the federal government in vilifying minority groups, he reckons there’s more votes in it, and it’ a sure fire thing provided we move from Niddrie. 

“Where to”? I said. 

“Who would accept the platform of so called “puerile, penis fixated little boys who’ve never grown up”??…  

Cecil replied defiantly. In one word, he summed up a brighter future. 

“Queensland”.