WWED? The Ethics of Trap Doors.
Photo: fowlerville.blogspot.com
February 3, 2015
Trap doors are cool in theory, but has anyone considered the harm they could cause? When a magician uses a trap door in one of his tricks safety is the number one concern. How can we be sure a trap door in the hands of a private citizen will be to the same level of safety? We can’t. This is a horrible dilemma that affects way more people than we realize. Trap doors don’t work the way they work in cartoons. When a real person falls down a trap door they die. They don’t get up and walk away like in Tom and Jerry. We have to stop the reckless abuse of trap doors in this country.
A trap is defined as any device, stratagem, trick, or the like for catching a person off guard. This is a negative word. When you trap someone, you are tricking them and no one likes to be tricked. What use does a device, specifically designed to trick others, have in the hands of a private citizen? It has no use that is constructive for society. If everyone rigged a bunch of trap doors all over the place you wouldn’t be able to walk to school without the fear of falling into the darkness. When you point to something and there’s nothing there and your friend looks and you say “made you look” they get annoyed because you tricked them. Don’t be that guy and use your trap doors to get back at people for all of the sorrow in your life.
Imagine the following situation: Your house is burning down, and a fireman is carrying your unconscious body toward the exit. He’s running and running, almost to the door, then the floor opens up beneath him and you both fall to your deaths. The floor didn’t collapse because of the fire, it opened up because of a trap door that only you knew existed. How are trap doors safe when this exact scenario is a possibility? Trap doors might seem like a harmless idea at first, but might turn out to be the biggest mistake of your life.
Historically, trap doors were used to systematically kill criminals. They would tie a noose around the person’s neck then pull a lever and a trap door would open up beneath them causing them to fall and their neck to break. If their neck didn’t break they would just hang there until they suffocated. How are trap doors supposed to be used for good when they were originally used for something this barbaric?
What Would Enzo Do? We need to end the reign of the trap door empire. If you think installing a trap door is a good idea, think again. Putting a series of trap doors throughout your house and yard won’t bring your dog back, it won’t fix your math grade, and it won’t get you a girlfriend. Focus on the things that really matter and leave the trap doors in the hands of our more than capable government. Trap doors are a huge threat to America. Guns and drones are perfectly fine though. You can have as many of those as you want.
Editor-in-Chief Jaylin Paschal and News and Entertainment Editor Enzo Libertini switched things up this week, by writing each other’s columns. While Enzo tried his hand at What Would Jaylin (or Enzo) Do?, Jaylin gave Does Anybody Really Care? a try.
