Like Father Like Son

A Florida company called Merchant Service is offering potential clients a voucher for a free AK-47 for opening an account with them, as part of their "No Merchant Victims" campaign.

MerchantService.com, based in Sarasota, provides retailers with ATMs and credit card processing equipment. But because of the inherent dangers of being a retailer, the company announced "a FREE GUN Incentive to encourage Merchants to stand their ground and protect themselves" on Thursday.

In exchange for opening an account with the company, retailers get a voucher for an AK-47, worth up to $750, that they can redeem at their friendly neighborhood gun dealer.
~ from Would You Like A High Capacity Magazine With That? FL Co Gives Away AK-47s To New Customers by Jillian Rayfield ~

On the surface, this promotion looks absolutely terrible. I mean, encouraging merchants to arm themselves with AK-47s borders on insanity!!

However, if we pull back to look at the larger picture, this makes unfortunate sense. This is precisely the way our paternalistic government behaves.

Our leaders continually try to twist the arms of recalcitrant governments throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East. To sweeten the pot, our leaders often suggest that, if this or that country acts like we want them to, we might just throw in a few billion dollars of military (or general) aid. And this gambit seems to work again and again...though it's not infrequent that, later on when the foreigners no longer see eye-to-eye with US designs, those weapons get turned against US!

Come to think of it, the last sentence should serve as an object lesson for Merchant Service. They should certainly keep in mind that, if they later find themselves in a legal or financial disagreement with one of their new clients, they shouldn't be surprised at all if one of these merchants shows up at their front door with one of those AK-47s in their hands!