The bodies aren’t even in the bags when they start calling people “gun grabbers” and claiming that the Constitution was written exclusively for their tactical toys, as if Adams and Jefferson were modern fundamentalist Prepper militiamen instead of thoughtful liberal philosophers in search of a functional society.
It is now clear that no blasphemy is grotesque enough to motivate action against the $43 billion firearms and ammunition industry, its handmaidens in Congress, and individuals who support this hobby that is, according to them, more important to democracy than public dialogue or voting. Hell, the more skull bone fragments and soft tissue scattered, the more sales surge in the aftermath.I would like to suggest a complete change in strategy as to the issue of firearm homicides, including the rapidly increasing frequency in mass murders that – curiously – are always perpetrated with pistols and military-style rifles as opposed to the boot knives and soup spoons they always say are “every bit as dangerous.” It is time to renounce, for the foreseeable future, the suggestion of any policy that might be perceived as “gun control.” No more talking about background checks or gun buy-backs. No more bickering about gun-free zones. Give up the dream of gun control in a land this large (which includes many places where guns are pretty necessary and don’t result in crime waves, like Vermont and Maine) and which is pretty well covered by a $43 billion industry, its PR machine, and campaign donations syndicate. It’s over. They won.
However, to all of those in the fever dream where your bang-bang toys will one day lead to either Protecting Us From Fascism or A Good Guy With A Gun Saves The Day, the rest of us hereby offer a stark choice:
You can have all your guns and no changes to law, or your narrative about how you’re The Good Guys. You may not, under any circumstances, have both.
The rest of us – including moderates who see a vital but limited role for firearms in American society – promise to keep the gun laws exactly as they are now, but we absolutely, vehemently oppose your narrative and will destroy your propaganda machine once and for all. The guns are the most important thing, right? Great. Stock up. Have a ball. AR-15s for all the kids. Make sure to put lots of pictures on Facebook with their fingers idiotically on the trigger while in your kitchen. Enjoy.
But you don’t get to be part of polite society any longer. Your every assertion needs to be assaulted on all sides by the facts, and you should be deafened by those who have remained mute, constrained by the fact that apparently having your kids survive a day at school or your sister survive a trip to church has – amazingly – a weak lobby by comparison. So we’re not going to encourage Congress to do anything. Read our lips: no more new gun laws. But you? You’re done getting a voice in this as if you have something of value to offer this society. All you get is the guns.
When you open your propaganda holes about how gun laws “don’t work” and criminals “get them anyway,” you will be informed – without chance for recourse – that you are a moron and Japan has 11 gun deaths per year out of 110,000,000 people because they don’t have guns around and the criminals don’t get them anyhow just like they also don’t in New Zealand and yes they have criminals (look up “The Yakuza”) and you’re an idiot for suggesting this, now never use this argument ever again.
But hey – keep your guns.
When you say that “guns are just tools, they can’t hurt you and you can use anything for murder,” we shall all emerge and demand that you answer why guns are the number one tool for homicide everywhere they are available, in every country all over the fucking planet, and why you hate police officers so much since they are murdered by firearms, not chainsaws or ball-peen hammers almost 90% of the time, and thus you are a mentally-defective yammering jerk who can’t tell the difference between a pencil and a pistol in terms of lethality.
But seriously – enjoy your guns. No laws are forthcoming. We promise.
And when the next mass murder pops up – even though hundreds or thousands of individual murders will have occurred in the meantime – and you drool and sputter that A Good Guy could have emerged if we armed every last human down to fetuses (who have rights!) then you will be forced to explain why the people packing heat in Roseburg, Oregon didn’t save the day or any of the other times people with concealed carry did not save the day against semi-automatic rifles and we won’t stop until you admit that THIS SHIT REQUIRES TRAINING such as in the police or the fucking Marine Corps, and NO, every jackass with a gun is not a potential hero, but statistically far more likely to leave their gun around for their toddlers than to stop a bank robbery, so you can seriously shut the fuck up.
Don’t worry though – tomorrow, go out and stock up on ammo. Obama’s got a year left, and you know how you heard he’d take all yer tactical weapons? Yeah…HE STILL MIGHT!!! Mwah ha ha! Don’t invest in the education or the stock market – get some hollowpoints.
And when the dark hand of Satan makes contact with the next town to win the Broken Young Male Lottery, no doubt we’ll be treated to another round of If It Weren’t For My AR-15, We’d Have Fascism or Statism or Something and then we’ll all – in a massive chorus – have to explain to you just exactly how fucking stupid it sounds when nobody has ever done what you are suggesting and don’t bring up The Revolutionary War which was a conventional war we were losing until the French showed up with warships and reinforcements and the Brits got tired, and how No, You’re Not Going to Defeat the Marines on Their Home Turf and how the Netherlands and Canada and Australia and Switzerland all have different, less insane gun laws and have – ALL OF THEM – higher standards of living and so get the fuck over yourselves, those dead people massacred with small arms are not dead so you can protect us from a 20th century political movement you scarcely fucking understand.
Don’t mind us, though – head to Wal-Mart and get some his-and-her pistols – a romantic anniversary gift, or great for any day of the year.
I am absolutely sincere in this – I no longer intend to even suggest a change to the laws of the United States. I may get testy when the NRA tries to make it illegal for pediatricians to ask if a child is raised in a house with firearms (*they are currently trying this) so I hope the Gun Lobby will agree to a détente, accepting current gun laws with no attempts at expansion. But, otherwise, have at boys, you did it! Ammopalooza! It’s Guntastic! Breathe a sigh of relief that these precious murder weapons will continue to spread out and proliferate, billions of dollars per year of them, such that the law of large numbers will guarantee that they end up in the hands of the unstable and the massacre-minded. You win.
Now, get out of our collective faces.
For those who remain – reasonable gun owners, sane policy makers, logical citizens and the merely curious – let us all dialog without the incessant barking of childish would-be Rambos, and talk about how a nation may remain democratic, free, and secure – from the public square to home and hearth.