Nurse the Hate: Hate Gun Control?

Only in Summer can you get the bad craziness of the last week.  When the weather is hot, people seem to take leave of their senses.  While you are sitting in an air conditioned refuge somewhere just trying to keep one foot in front of the other, somewhere someone is all fueled up on copious amounts of light beer and bath salts, frothing at the mouth due to the heat.  You show me a good heat wave, and I will show you senseless violence. 

 There are three ways to deal with The End of Days.  Some people turn to religion, the time proven opiate of the masses.  A nice air conditioned church may have some upside on a sunny humid Sunday, I’ll give ya that.  Who doesn’t like a dude in a beard strumming an acoustic playing a hymn?  Still, what are you going to do Mon-Sat?  I have been focused on the second time proven template.  I have been on a game plan of “making it all go away” with gallons of Stone Pale Ale and Founder’s All Day IPA, floating around in my kayak, and avoiding eye contact with anyone even slightly off-kilter.  While this is actually a way of hiding in plain sight, you can probably let a few weeks slip past and look up to discover its Autumn.  So how else do you get through Summer?  The third way is one proving more popular of late, stocking up on weapons and letting it all hang out.  Really going for it, you know?   

 Let’s take that movie theater shooting from last week…  I think we can all agree that perhaps it may be time to have a real discussion about gun control.  Many gun nuts will suggest this is just reactionary, and they may have a point.  If a violent crime is not committed in Florida, it has probably been done in Colorado.  I think the sheer concentration of white people listening to jam bands, eating organic food, mountain biking and bitching about the Denver Broncos is too much.  People standing in line waiting for a flax seed muffin while having Blues Traveler piped in over the coffee shop PA just snap.  It’s too much.

 Since I think we can agree any of us might snap living in that kind of terrible crunchy lifestyle, the only thing we can do is limit the ability of creepy loners to get automatic weapons.  I think you should be allowed to have a deer rifle if you actually go hunting, or maybe a shotgun if you live on a farm.  That’s reasonable, right?  You probably don’t need an assault rifle and 6000 rounds of ammo if you live in a shitty apartment in suburban Denver.  Uh-oh…  Here comes the Gun Lobby!  “If you try to take away one kind of gun that will only lead to the government taking away all guns from everyone and completely violating the Constitution!” 

 This is the same stupid argument the NRA has been waging since kooks started shooting up civilians.  It’s so moronic; it is amazing it is even entertained by anyone with an education above coloring books.  Using a document from the late 1700s that couldn’t conceive of the ways we would invent to kill each other is probably not a great idea.  Just like we moved on from tri-corned hats, powdered wigs, etc., we moved from single shot muskets to AR-15 assault rifles.  Things change.  The founding fathers probably didn’t think it would be a good idea to let crazy people have as much fire power as an entire Revolutionary War division.  Do you think Thomas Jefferson leaned over to John Adams and said, “You know, we should let anyone that wants a cannon buy a cannon.  Like that guy that was begging us for schillings outside of Ye Olde Tavern last night.  He should get a cannon if he wants one.  That’s what this new America thing is all about.  Let’s get real real gone for a change.  Got any more ale in ye old pewter mug?”

 Nobody is trying to stop hunters, or keeping a family from having a gun in their home for protection.  It's probably a good idea not to make available certain kinds of weapons, registering guns and ammo purchases, and having background checks that take longer than an hour.  I think it is reasonable that ordinary citizens should get red flagged if they start buying shitloads of ammo, body armor, multiple guns, and spend too much time involved in comic books and/or video games.  If you are reading books about how to make chemical bombs, things aren’t going to end well for anyone.  These are the actions that always end in news interviews with neighbors saying how “polite and quiet” the killers were.  “He kept to himself mostly.  Real quiet.  Always very polite.  I couldn’t imagine him ever doing something like this.”

 There are some very powerful lessons this incident has taught all of us.  1)  As a society, we should make it almost impossible to own assault rifles, especially if you are a white male under 30 that has lost their mind.  2)  It is safer to be floating around in a kayak buzzed up on pale ale worried about chimp attacks than going to a Batman movie.  To be safe, don’t go to the Batman movie at all.  Go see “Moonrise Kingdom” instead.  It’s better.  3)  Stay out of Colorado.  The incessant hippie eco-vegan camping jam band pro-environmental yoga crystal power Caucasian lifestyle will break you in two.