Chili Control: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Chili can be used as a weapon (seen via Instapundit):

Wanda Bray didn't submit easily to a home invasion robbery on Tuesday.

When two men broke into her home to rob her, she fought back.

"The woman fought them off," said Capt. David Honeycutt of the Claiborne County Sheriff's Department, of the 58-year-old Bray. "She threw a bowl of homemade chili and got after them with a broom."

This exposes one of the most important social problems facing America today—the unlicensed, unregistered, and unregulated use of chili.

A woman was able to repulse home invaders using chili. This time chili happened to be a defense. Next time the robber can turn the chili on its owner. We may soon be faced with the prospect of countless numbers of chili-wielding criminals terrorizing neighborhoods across the United States.

We should not feel complacent about this and assume decent citizens can use their own chili. Professional, hardened criminals can always use such dangerous substances better than an amateur. Fighting chili with chili should be left to the police. Chili also does not eliminate the causes of crime and only teaches the criminal to use force instead of reason to solve problems.

We must also consider the effect of chili on the social fabric. If a customer in a low-income neighborhood goes into a restaurant and sees chili on the menu, he might perceive that as a expression of the owner's prejudices. That could produce riots and chaos worse than New Orleans after Katrina.

The possibility that chili may become weapons in family quarrels is even more serious. For every bowl of chili used to repulse a criminal, many more are used to inflict pain on members of the same family. We can attempt to solve this problem by chili safety education (chili is not for children, always assume every chili dish is made of habaneros, and never serve chili to someone as a joke) but that will alleviate only part of the problem.

We must also beware of slogans such as “chili doesn't burn tongues; people burn tongues.” It is people with chili who burn tongues.

I call upon all enlightened statesmen to overcome to awesome power of the NCA (National Chili Association), remove chili from our school lunches, organize a boycott of Mexico and Thailand, and introduce legislation mandating the registration and licensing of these instruments of torture.

Okay, so I recycled this…