Important Information: New Trombone Control Laws

LONG OVERDUE TROMBONE CONTROL LAWS


WASHINGTON, D.C. - Each year thousands are people are killed, maimed,
bewildered or annoyed by trombones. The statistics of head, neck and even
shoulder injuries sustained by reed players, french horn and string sections
seated within reach of the deadly seventh position are truly shocking ...
not to mention forced early retirement due to ever increasing hearing
problems reported by classical musicians who are forced to play the music of
Wagner, Mahler and Brahms, as well as the hundreds of alumni of the Herman,
Ferguson and Kenton bands and OKOM devotees of Kid Ory, Jack Teagarden, Abe
Lincoln, Lou McGarity, John Allred and Lee Gifford.

There is current legislation pending in Congress to restrict the sale of
trombones and to equip them with child-safety devices. The influential
trombone lobby is, of course, opposed to this. There have even been
several proposals for requiring a so-called "trigger lock" on all bass
trombones! Every year there are reports of hundreds of innocent children,
attracted by the shiny brass and smooth, seductive curves of an unattended
instrument on a stand in the corner of a room or in an unlocked case who are
traumatized for life by the attempts of a playmate to get a sound out of it,
or who may suffer a collapsed lung or the effects of hyperventilation by
trying the same effort themselves! The owner's feeble "I didn't know the
slide was unlocked" is no excuse!
Trombones should be stored out of reach of children. Efforts to enact a
mandatory 10-day waiting period to purchase a trombone - which would simply
allow a reasonable period of time for law enforcement officials to
cross-check the purchaser's name against an International list of registered
trombone offenders and Slide-O-Mix addicts, have been repeatedly thwarted by
the powerful Selmer-Conn-Yamaha (SCY) lobby. Law enforcement officials are
particularly alarmed over the increase in crimes involving use of the
"sawed-off" trombone or "sackbut." Legislation is also pending in several
progressive states, including New York and California, to make carrying a
concealed alto trombone a Class A felony!

Some Governors feel that there are sufficient laws already on the books that
simply need stricter enforcement - such as the 1932 nation-wide ban of
screw-on bells, the indiscriminate use of Pond's Cold Cream or KY Jelly and
unsupervised emptying of spit valves on public property - a filthy and
unsanitary habit which will help spread the flu again this year. One popular
response to the spread of delinquent behavior is the imposition of mandatory
longer sentences for those using a trombone while committing a crime ("Use a
trombone - Go to jail!"; "False Positions Mean Solitary Confinement!"; "Add
a Plunger - Double Your Time!" and "Growl and Forget About parole!").
Surveillance video tapes have proven especially effective in identifying
violators of this statute because career criminals have often tried to avoid
convictions by having their lawyers insist that what eye-witnesses reported
as a trombone was really only an AK-47 or other legal assault weapon. Strict
enforcement has been especially effective when used in conjunction with the
new "Three sharps, you're out" statutes that have
already been approved by many state legislatures.

Of course the automatic and semi-automatic valved models - both piston and
the middle-European rotary, are much more dangerous than the traditional
single valve trombone. Interpol has also reported the sudden appearance of
rear-blasting Cavalry models that were thought to have been completely
eliminated during the Great Confiscation mandated by the 1918 Treaty of
Versailles signed by representatives of every civilized country of the
period. You may recall that those instruments were melted down and became an
integral part of the Trans-Atlantic Telephone Cable that helped to unite
America and Europe.
It is believed that the new source of these WMD's are isolated factories in
rural areas of China . The awesome destructive power of the double trigger
bass trombone could never have been imagined by the
founding fathers when they granted us the right to keep and bear arms.

Remember: When trombones are outlawed, only outlaws will play "I'm Gettin'
Sentimental Over You."

Author: (the late German trombone wizard) Albert Manglesdorff