Gun control now!

• Most people should not own guns. They will not take the time to learn gun safety or become good shots, or have the nerve to use them in an emergency.
• I include myself in that.
• But we should all be allowed to own a gun if we want.
• People above who should not own guns might own guns, so we should have laws that say we should not allow any guns in public places like theaters, schools, or fundamentalist churches.
• Or Tea Party or Democratic Party gatherings.
• I know that we ignore most of the Bill of Rights these days, but the Second Amendment pretty much says clearly that we have a right to bear arms. That militia clause is confusing, but probably had to do with a time when we did not have standing armies.
• There’s always a hitch, and it is this: Some weapons we might call “guns” are really dangerous – machine guns, rocket launchers, tanks. These did not exist in 1790. So we have to draw a line.
• “Assault” weapons are just guns with fancy handles. You still have to pull the trigger each time you shoot one bullet. That ought to be on this side of the line.
• Weapons that fire more than one round at a trigger pull can cause immense harm. Put one of those in my hands when a bear charges or a CIA patsy or a guy who doesn’t like paying taxes and thinks he is John Galt, and we have a problem.
• I lied in the title of this post above. I can do that if I want.

President Obama is said to have been very angry when the gun control bill did not pass. Take that with a grain of salt, as he’s an actor and that was probably staged for the cameras. But where he stands on gun control … who knows. What is worrisome with our National Security culture is that we will cede enough power to the executive that he won’t have to pass some silly law to disarm the populace. He’ll just do it. (“The Executive” is shorthand for the executive branch, which has pretty much been freed of all constitutional restraints since 9/11. It includes the military.)

But I cannot see that working – there are too many guns, too many ways to get guns, and anyway, what’s a few rifles when an assault helicopter is bearing down, or as in Collateral Murder, you can be killed from a helicopter so high in the sky that you cannot even hear it. Our biggest gun problems are cops, warriors, TSA agents, private soldiers, intel agents and patsies.