It’s happening, America.

Some warned us, but I ignored them. I just kept riding around, looking awesome, never believing my own country would infringe on my constitutionally protected freedom to pursue happiness.

But now, our worst fear has become reality: They’re coming for our hoverboards.

Our God-given right to be effortlessly propelled by two-wheeled, self-balancing, gyroscopically controlled personal transporters is being trampled by public institutions and safety advocates who are clearly in the pocket of Big Walking.

A Chicago Tribune report this week by my colleague Brianna Gurciullo revealed some of the early signs of hover discrimination: “Illinois universities have told students returning from winter break to leave the devices at home. Metra also announced Friday that it would prohibit hoverboards on its trains.”

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has banned the battery-powered boards from university buildings, and Eastern Illinois University in Charleston and Bradley University in Peoria won’t let hoverboards inside university housing.

This is clearly just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure that if Commandant Emperor Barack Obama and his tyranny czars have their way, members of the hoverboarding community will soon be second-class citizens, forced to express our upper-level coolness in tight hallways behind closed doors or in dank back alleys.

For those of you unfamiliar with the hoverboard, it’s like a Segway without the dorky handle. You stand on the board and lean slightly in whichever direction you want its two wheels to take you.

It eliminates the worst part of bipedalism — exertion — and allows hip humans to gently lean themselves wherever they need to go. I think about all the years spent rolling my desk chair around the office to avoid walking and think: “Finally, an invention that will actually help humanity.”

Most models come with rad colored LED lights on the front and back, so nobody will miss you as you race by, shoulders squared, body tilted, atop a sideways skateboard that could, at any moment, burst into flames.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention the best feature: Hoverboards have shown a tendency to burst into flames! The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating 37 such fires in 19 states.

It’s not clear exactly how the fires are starting, but it’s believed to have something to do with the lithium ion batteries that power the devices.

As far as I’m concerned, spontaneous combustion should be an add-on feature. I’m sure my kids and their friends already think it’s cool when I pick them up from school on my h-board (that’s hoverboarder slang), but imagine how wowed they’ll be when dad careens into the parking lot with his cargo shorts on fire.

Of course the worrywarts in the head-injury-prevention industrial complex think the boards are dangerous because riders could “fall off” or “run into another human being at a high rate of speed” or “get killed by oncoming traffic while taking a seriously righteous mid-crosswalk h-board selfie.”

They know nothing of being awesome. They recommend helmets and kneepads and other safety gear. I recommend they check me out as I’m flipping them the bird while zipping by on my flaming, neon-green, two-wheeled happiness machine.

College of DuPage Vice President of Student Affairs Earl Dowling said in the Tribune report: “Riding a hoverboard or a motorized scooter or whatever you want to call it down a crowded corridor during class changes is not a good idea.”

Wrong, Dowling. It’s a great idea. People will look up to you and know that you have seen the future, a future that does not involve getting around using these senseless meat tubes we call legs.

There’s also a personal safety factor associated with hoverboard ownership. I’m sure I’m not the first to tell you that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a hoverboard and a gun is a good guy with a hoverboard and a gun. (Unless the bad guy’s hoverboard bursts into flames and he drops his gun. But who wants to take a chance on that happening?)

Point is, we won’t be truly safe until all law-abiding Americans own hoverboards and are allowed to openly ride them in parks, churches, schools, vape shops, farmer’s markets, office buildings and hospitals that treat head injuries.

The odds aren’t in our favor. Already, Amtrak and most major U.S. airlines have banned the boards and I’m sure Obama isn’t far from ordering a registry of all hoverboard owners, or perhaps even an outright ban.

I say, come and get it, tyrants. I’m stockpiling boards and joining a group of anti-walking patriots at a remote federal parking lot that we will occupy for months while jumping ramps and doing sweet 360s and possibly suffering epically debilitating injuries.

What I’m saying is: You can have my hoverboard when you pry it from my hot, extensively burned sneakers. (Please bring calamine lotion and some bandages. And a clean pair of cargo shorts.)

(c)2016 the Chicago Tribune

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