Way back when, in the Wild West of myth and legend, the hip-swaggering days of Wild Bill Hickok and Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp and Jesse James and all, you didn't carry a loaded gun into a saloon bar unless you were prepared to use it.
Now, the relatively polite world of contemporary political discourse is hardly a saloon bar brawl, but I reckon the principle equally applies.
And, after all, it is election year.
So when yesterday, in response to the Savings Working Group's final report, the Finance Minister Bill English reiterated an intention to consider the option of privatising a portion of certain state-owned enterprises, then it can be taken as read that - unless there is an almighty backlash over it - this is precisely what the Government intends to do.
This is what he said: "We are also considering options - such as the viability of the mixed-ownership model for four energy SOEs - that would reduce the amount we would need to borrow to pay for substantial increases in Government assets like schools, faster broadband and better transport infrastructure".
Given the history of the sale of state assets over the last 30 years, the very word "privatisation" is very much a loaded political gun.
The question is, and this is a gamble that Prime Minister John Key and his advisers will have weighed up with utmost diligence, could it backfire in the coalition Government's face? So far it has pushed through a number of formerly controversial initiatives with relative ease, and the PM's personal political capital remains in the stratosphere.
There will be those on the neo-liberal side of the party saying "if not now, when?"Accordingly, the issue came to the fore last week when Mr Key raised the possibility in his State of the Nation address.
In it he said that although no decisions had yet been taken, the Government was seeking Treasury advice on the partial privatisation of Mighty River Power, Meridian, Genesis and Solid Energy, as well as considering reducing its stake in Air New Zealand.
Given the sensitivity of such matters it can be read into this that the Government has already sought considerable advice on the matter and formulated a solid rationale for such a move - otherwise it would not be floating it.
Mr Key illustrated the potential benefits of the move by referencing the Air New Zealand model.
"... the Government has a controlling stake in what is a crucial piece of transport infrastructure and guarantees that it will be majority New Zealand-owned.
"But by not owning 100% of the airline, the Government also had capital free to invest in other assets."
Mr English's intervention lends the proposition an even fresher face.
New Zealand is severely indebted, dangerously so the pundits and economists say, to the extent that some even claim that after the Piigs of Europe - Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain - we are next in line for a spanking by the world's credit rating agencies, overseas banks and investors.
So to pay for the things we need to pay for, we need to source more funds from domestic savers and investors.
One way of doing this is to see whether - as the critics like to put it - there's some family silver lurking around in the Government's bargain basement that could be polished up and put on the market.
And lo, of course, there is.
The Government intends, on the behalf of you the taxpayer, to offer the opportunity of a personal stake - at a price and hopefully with ongoing dividends - in that which presently belongs collectively to all taxpayers: namely four state-owned energy companies, and quite possibly part of the national airline.
With the money you - the fondly cited "mum and dad" investors of the land - pay for a stake in that which you previously thought you already owned a stake of, the Government will, on your behalf, fund schools, faster broadband and better transport infrastructure.
You might have thought your taxes were being used to fund such things already.
As has already been variously pointed out, the history of state asset sales in this country is an inglorious one.
KiwiRail's forerunners were stripped and flogged to within an inch of their lives, and the profits repatriated offshore, before being bought back by the last Labour government whose political forebears had hocked it off in the first place; Air New Zealand, likewise was bought back by Labour as it teetered on the edge of oblivion; Telecom, which for years after its privatisation paid rudely handsome dividends to its - mostly - overseas shareholders and somehow failed to keep apace of the innovation which would have more firmly have maintained its market leader position and share value.
In 1987, mum and dad investors all over the country lost gazillions in the sharemarket crash; in 2007, mum and dad investors lost just as much if not even more in the great finance company debacle.
A lot of mum and dad investors, doubly burnt, put their money into real estate, and watched the price of land and housing fall.
But if nothing else, they could still watch the grass grow, mow the lawns and feel they owned something.
Doubtless there will be those keen to line up for a parcel of shares in any partial privatisation of state energy companies because, as any decent broker will tell you, utilities are hot property.
But whether those in line are the mythical mums and dads is another question.
Simon Cunliffe is deputy editor (news) at the Otago Daily Times.
