Guns, Guns, and More Guns

Guns are currently a hot topic in the US, with the recent mass shooting at a Florida high school leading to renewed calls to finally take some substantial steps to reduce gun violence. My own opinions on such matters are pretty clear cut - more guns lead to more gun violence, no civilian needs to (or should be allowed to) own a semi-automatic weapon or high-capacity magazine, a thorough background check should be completed for every single gun sale, and a national gun registry should be established. But in the interest of, ahem, fairness, I'll let the "guest" author of a prior post on guns present his side of the argument:

A few years ago I made a modest proposal to prevent school shootings: we should arm not only the teachers but the students as well. Unfortunately, not even the most dedicated of the patriotic gun loving politicians had the boldness to formally advocate this. Now look what's happened! People should have listened to me! Still, at least some of them have once more promoted the intermediate step of arming the teachers. Some naysayers argue that this would be expensive, as we'd be talking several hundred thousand teachers at a minimum. But come on now, our country should be willing to spend as much as it takes to put guns in teachers' hands. It would be a much better investment than paying for things like books or school supplies, because education has to take a backseat to getting more guns out there...I mean, making schools safe.

Some argue that having a bunch of armed teachers wouldn't necessarily make schools safer either, since even battle-hardened soldiers can have trouble in an actual shootout, let alone teachers who've had a little training but have never actually had someone shooting at them. But don't those people know that life is like a movie or video game? The good guy will always manage to get his shot off under pressure. And the same argument applies to those who say that going up against a semi-automatic weapon with a handgun is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Just give the teachers the guns and we can count on them. If they should panic and run, or accidentally hit a student, or otherwise mess up when they're under fire, we'll just put the blame on their personal inadequacies. Guns are always right, it's the people who use them who are sometimes wrong.

As for this crazy idea of banning semi-automatic weapons or instituting universal background checks, it's like Marco Rubio, one of the gun lobby's most loyal paid...er, that is, friends in Congress, said, if some bad guy really wants to shoot up a school or something, he'll find a way to get the gun he needs... so we should make it as easy as possible for him to do so. And if he does, and he goes on a rampage, we'll be certain to blame the authorities for failing to take note of his obvious mental health issues, even if he hadn't actually been known to have any. At least if he's a white guy; if he's black or Muslim or something then it was clearly his ideology that should have alerted authorities. In any case, it will always be authorities' fault for not knowing this person was dangerous. The fact that he could buy a really powerful weapon without having to go through an onerous background check will never be the problem. After all, tougher background checks might inconvenience me and others who want to buy more beautiful, beautiful guns, and a ban on guns like AR-15s would stop us from buying them. We can't have that. Aside from the fact that they're just cool and so we shouldn't be denied them, I can imagine possible situations where I might actually need one. Some may claim the chances are small, but you always have to prepare for any eventuality, however unlikely. A refugee who went through years of vetting might still be a terrorist, so we can't let them in; my cat might decide to murder me in my sleep by lying on my nose and mouth and suffocating me, so I have to lock it out of my bedroom at night; aliens might be controlling my neighbor so I can't let him in my apartment; and I might be attacked by a gang of robbers or a squad of government agents, so I need to be able to buy a semi-automatic weapon.

Finally, all these companies ending their relationships with the NRA are absolutely crossing the line. Like some of the NRA's loyal pets...I mean friends in the Georgia legislature said, not letting NRA members have a special discount for being NRA members is clearly discrimination against conservatives. If you don't give us preferential treatment, you are discriminating against us.

So I hope that clears everything up. Guns are not the problem, they are the solution. And the fact that other countries that don't have nearly as many guns also have a lot less gun violence is purely coincidence.

Hmm, okay then....