The Difference Between A Gun & A Sword

Only one of them can hurt someone a quarter mile away:

COLUMBUS, Ind. (WISH) - An intoxicated man agitated over a text conversation Sunday evening grabbed a sword and a pistol, then fired the gun at the ceiling, police said. That bullet went through a kitchen window a quarter of a mile away, police said.

A woman said she had left the kitchen just moments before the bullet shot through the window of the home in the 1300 block of Cottage Avenue, according to 24-Hour News 8's news partner the Columbus Republic.

At about 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Columbus police were called to the 2100 block of 12th Street on a report of shots fired and to the 1300 block of Cottage Avenue on a report that a bullet had broken a window. Children were in both homes at the time of the shooting.

"I think we are very fortunate here that no one was injured," said Lt. Joe Richardson, spokesman for Columbus Police Department. 

On 12th Street, police said witness reports led them to Freddie Perez, 39. He was arrested on preliminary charges of criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon, public intoxication and violating a city ordinance against firing a firearm within city limits. He was released on $13,500 bond.

Curious about the public intoxication charge, since it sounds like the guy was in his house, but regardless: we’re very, very lucky that someone wasn’t injured or killed. As long as people are going to continue to be idiots I'm going to continue to advocate for gun control laws.

How Are Those 2nd Amendment Remedies Workin’ For Ya?

Another mentally unbalanced nutter with a criminal record legally gets his hands on a gun and goes on a rampage. Just another day in the Wild West.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said it all:

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," the sheriff said. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Four days ago an armed man barricaded himself in an Arizona mall with hostages. And back in April Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into a law a bill allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Oops.

But let’s look at the big picture. Southern Arizona’s largest employer is Raytheon Missile Systems, Arizona’s largest defense contractor.

Live by the gun, die by the gun. As without, so within. As in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm.

We spread violence around the world with our wars for oil, we spread violent rhetoric around the country on talk radio, we have leaders putting political rivals in crosshairs and candidates calling for “Second Amendment remedies.” Our children play violent video games and we watch acts of violence as entertaintment. We are a culture ruled by violence.

So don’t act so fucking surprised, America. This was entirely predictable.

More ...

Living The Gun Life

[UPDATE] 2:

Comments now closed. Everything that could possibly be said has been said.

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[UPDATE]:

As usual, the personal attacks have begun. I've allowed plenty of pro-gun folks to comment on this thread and share their ideas. I welcome reasonable conversation but if you're going to be an asshole and attack me personally I'm going to close this comment thread.

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I love sharing my thoughts about guns, gun violence, and gun policy. Without fail my blog gets trolled by gun loons, 99% of them the same folks -- directed here by the same pro-gun blog -- who have hated what I have to say since the Tennessee guns-in-bars bill that started this whole thing. They come over to my blog to whine about how I won’t let them trash me or my regulars with comment spam. Apparently the idea that shouting over everyone else is not conducive to a conversation is a completely foreign concept.

It’s thuggery, pure and simple: I know this because one of my regular trolls once promised to call off the dogs if I’d stop blogging about guns. I don’t like poking a stick at a hornet’s nest but I like being intimidated even less, so I’ll keep writing about stuff that strikes a nerve with me, gun loons be damned.

Back in August I was fascinated by Dan Baum’s CCW story in Harper’s: "Happiness is a worn gun: My concealed weapon and me.” Baum is a Boulder, Colorado-based avowed liberal, and also a CCW holder and gun enthusiast -- many liberals are, contrary to conventional wisdom and what Fox News pundits and NRA newsletters say. (Of course, Fox and the NRA have a vested interest in dividing the country into “us” and “them,” so what do you expect?)

Before I go any further, let me tell my pro-gun readers that Baum’s piece is probably the best argument for guns, open-carry, shall-issue laws, etc. which I’ve ever read. (Hint to the gun loons: trolling liberal blogs acting like dicks does not exactly do your movement or your point of view much service. But I digress.)

I’ve been wanting to write about Baum’s piece since I read it back in August but every time I try I end up basically quoting the whole thing, because it’s so full of insight. Unfortunately, Harper’s is subscription only, so if you don’t subscribe you’ll have to find some other way of getting your hands on a copy.

The truth is, I have a lot of friends and family members -- political liberals and Dem-leaning moderates -- who like to shoot firearms and hunt. Heck, I met Mr. Beale at a shooting party. Yes, it’s true! Go figure.

That said, there’s a difference between my liberal gun friends and the ideological purists who deny guns pose any danger at all, who claim that all CCW permit holders are always responsible, and pretend that guns are as innocuous as Bic pens. I detect a cult-like mindset, something which comes up again and again when Baum writes about what he calls “living the gun life.”

Let’s start with Baum’s description of the handgun class he was required to take by Colorado law:

The classes I took taught me almost nothing about how to defend myself with a gun. One, taught by a man who said he refuses to get a carry permit because “I don’t think I have to get the government’s permission to exercise my right to bear arms,” packed about twenty minutes of useful instruction into four long evenings of platitudes, Obama jokes, and belligerent posturing. “The way crime is simply out of control, you can’t afford not to wear a gun all the time,” he told us on several occasions. We shot fifty rounds apiece at man-shaped targets fifteen feet away. The legal-implications segment was taught by a cop who, after warming us up with fart jokes, encouraged us to lie to policemen if stopped while wearing our guns and suggested that nobody in his right mind would let a burglar run off with a big-screen TV. It’s illegal to shoot a fleeing criminal, he said, “but if your aim is good enough, you have time to get your story straight before I [the police] get there.” Thank you for coming; here’s your certificate of instruction. The other class, a three-hour quickie at the Tanner Gun Show in Denver, was built around a fifteen-minute recruiting pitch for the NRA and a long-winded, paranoid fantasy about “home invasion.” “They’re watching what time you come home, what time do you get up to go to the bathroom, when you’re there, when you’re not,” said the instructor, Rob Shewmake, of the Florida company Equip 2 Conceal. “They know who lives in the house. They know where your bedroom is, and they’re there to kill you.” (Eighty-seven Americans were murdered during burglaries in 2008; statistically, you had a better chance of being killed by bees.)

These are Kool-Aid drinkers who, like Zach Wamp, appear to be so drunk on the fear porn we get 24/7 from the news media that you’d think they were the last defense between civilzation and utter mayhem. Even though violent crime has been dropping for years, apparently thieves, rapists and murderers lurk around every corner, ready to defile their daughters and steal their flat-screen TV.

Their paranoid vision of America is not one I share. “Living the gun life” appears to require being in a constant state of fear, mistrust, and paranoia, viewing your fellow citizens as potential threats, and ready to fight to the death for material objects that are not nearly as valuable as a human life--even the life of a criminal.

Fear is a potent drug, as bad as heroin or cocaine, and equally addictive. Of course this is what the gun loons are selling -- a populace that isn’t in fear doesn’t need to arm itself, does it?

Baum continues:

Both classes were less about self-defense than about recruiting us into a culture animated by fear of violent crime. In the Boulder class, we watched lurid films of men in ski masks breaking into homes occupied by terrified women. We studied color police photos of a man slashed open with a knife. Teachers in both classes directed us to websites dedicated to concealed carry, among them usacarry.org, an online gathering place where the gun-carrying community warns, over and over, that crime is “out of control.”

In fact, violent crime has fallen by a third since 1989—one piece of unambiguous good news out of the past two decades. Murder, rape, robbery, assault: all of them are much less common now than they were then. At class, it was hard to discern the line between preparing for something awful to happen and praying for something awful to happen. A desire to carry a gun seemed to precede the fear of crime, the fear serving to justify the carrying. I asked one of the instructors whether carrying a gun didn’t bespeak a needlessly dark view of mankind. “I’m an optimist,” he said, “but we live in a world of assholes.”

At the conclusion of both classes, we students were welcomed into the gun-carrying fraternity as though dripping from the baptismal font. “Thank you for being a part of this, man. You’re doing the right thing,” one of the Boulder teachers said, taking my hand in both of his and looking into my eyes. “You should all be proud of yourselves just for being here,” said the police officer who helped with the class. “All of us thank you.” As we stood shaking hands, with our guns in our gym bags and holding our certificates, we felt proud, included, even loved. We had been admitted to a league of especially useful gentlemen and ladies.

Welcome to the gun cult! You are now in an exclusive, “special” group: defenders of freedom, liberty, chastity, and family. The fate of the Republic rests on your shoulders.

There's more:

Just as the Red Cross would like everybody to be qualified in CPR, gun carriers want everybody prepared to confront violence—not only by being armed but by maintaining Condition Yellow. Hang around with people committed to carrying guns and it’s easy to feel guilty about lapsing into Condition White, to begin seeing yourself as deadweight on society, a parasite, a mediocre citizen. “You should constantly practice being in Condition Yellow all the time,” writes Tony Walker in his book How to Win a Gunfight. Of course, it’s not for everyone; the armed life in Condition Yellow requires being mentally prepared to kill. As John Wayne puts it in his last movie, The Shootist, “It’s not always being fast or even accurate that counts. It’s being willing.”

This is a classic cult mind-control device: to portray those who are in the cult as having special, privileged knowledge, an exclusivity or "elite" status. Those who are outside the cult are portrayed as lost souls, in extreme cases they are evil. It's a separation of humanity into the privileged few and the "other."

This cracked me up, but it also made me sad:

When I mention that I’m carrying, their faces light up. “Good for you!” “Right on!” “God bless you!” The owner of a gun factory in Mesa, Arizona, spotted the gun under my jacket and said, with great solemnity, “You honor me by wearing your gun to my place of business.”

You honor me? Dang. That's some serious whack.

Fear is an effective tool; its opposite -- certainty -- is equally enticing. I don't want to live in fear all of the time -- I daresay most people don't, but when you live in a world where fear messages are thrust at you nonstop, it's a hard habit to quit. I've said more than once that if fear is what you're selling, I ain’t buying.

Neither do I want certainty. Certainty looks appealing but it's a chimera. There's no such thing. Destiny turns on a dime, the world is a maze of gray. Black and white exists only in morality plays and fundamentalist religion.

The problem is, fear is what they’re selling. Baum writes about the state of high alert, the hyper-vigilance which comes with carrying a gun and being in what's called “Condition Yellow.”

If I’m in a restaurant or store, I find myself in my own little movie, glancing at the door when a person walks in and, in a microsecond, evaluating whether a threat has appeared and what my options for response would be—roll left and take cover behind that pillar? On the street, I look people over: Where are his hands? What does his face tell me? I run sequences in my head. If a guy jumps me with a knife, should I throw money to the ground and run? Take two steps back and draw? How about if he has a gun? How will I distract him so I can get the drop? It can be fun. But it can also be exhausting. Some nights I dream gunfight scenarios over and over and wake up bushed. In Flagstaff I was planning to meet a friend for a beer, and although carrying in a bar is legal in Arizona, drinking in a bar while armed is not. I locked my gun in the car. Walking the few blocks to the bar, I realized how different I felt: lighter, dreamier, conscious of how the afternoon light slanted against Flagstaff’s old buildings. I found myself, as I walked, composing lines of prose. I was lapsing into Condition White, and loving it.

Condition White may make us sheep, but it’s also where art happens. It’s where we daydream, reminisce, and hear music in our heads. Hard-core gun carriers want no part of that, and the zeal for getting everybody to carry a gun may be as much an anti–Condition White movement as anything else—resentment toward the airy-fairy elites who can enjoy the luxury of musing, sipping tea, and nibbling biscuits while the good people of the world have to work for a living and keep their guard up. Gun guys never stop building and strengthening this like-minded community.

I don't know if Baum was aware he is describing a cult, but he is.

I can’t imagine what living in this constant state of hypervigilance does to one’s psyche. It’s not healthy, and it’s certainly an effective way to exert cult-like influence over a group of people.

The last half of Baum's article addresses the issue of gun policy. He makes some really interesting points. For example:

Shall-issue may or may not have contributed to the stunning drop in violent crime since the early Nineties. The problem with the catchy More Guns, Less Crime construction, though, is that many other things may have helped: changing demographics, smarter policing, the burnout of the crack-cocaine wave, three-strikes laws, even—as suggested by Freakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner—legalized abortion. And crime dropped more in some states that didn’t adopt shall-issue laws than in some that did.

But shall-issue didn’t lead to more crime, as predicted by its critics. The portion of all killing done with a handgun—the weapon people carry concealed—hasn’t changed in decades; it’s still about half. Whereas the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., can produce a list of 175 killings committed by carry-permit holders since 2007, the NRA can brandish a longer list of crimes prevented by armed citizens. I prefer to rely on the FBI’s data, which show that not only are bad-guy murders—those committed in the course of rape, robbery, and other felonies—way down but so are spur-of-the-moment murders involving alcohol, drugs, romantic entanglements, money disputes, and other arguments: the very types of murders that critics worried widespread concealed-carry would increase.

This is all good information but it’s not a compelling argument to me.

Here is what resonates with me:

When I called Mike Stollenwerk, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who is a cofounder of opencarry.org, he told me right away he thinks displaying a gun outside a presidential event is for “the Tea Party nutties.” He wants more people carrying handguns openly because “we want everybody to have that right.” Wearing guns openly so you can wear guns openly sounds to me like the old Firesign Theatre joke about the mural depicting the historic struggle of the people to finish the mural. Open-carry is already legal almost everywhere. But Stollenwerk said the movement is about changing culture rather than law. “We’re trying to normalize gun ownership by openly carrying properly holstered handguns in daily life,” he said.

And this is my objection. Baum provided an excellent window into “the gun life” and it’s not a life I want, or a community I want to call home. I don’t want the culture changed into this high-stress, hyper-vigilant “Condition Yellow.” I don’t want to be a member of your cult and the eroding of community standards it represents, where killing a fellow human being to defend your big screen TV is a virtue. I’d rather sip tea and nibble biscuits with the other airy-fairy elites. And if that’s something you want to do, then fine - I’m not an abolitionist, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to ask a few assurances. Like, for instance, that you’ve cleared a thorough background check, you have been thoroughly trained, and your permit is revoked if you’re an idiot like Debra Monce. Of course, these things are supposed to happen but we’ve seen what a joke this is. Because when you’re in gun cult country, where those who go unarmed are viewed as parasites and the man teaching the gun class refuses to get a carry permit on principle, such things are not just inconvenience, they are a downright threat.

Baum writes:

We may all benefit from having a lot of licensed people carrying guns, if only because of the heightened state of awareness in which they live. It’s a scandal, though, that people can get a license to carry on the basis of a three-hour “course” given at a gun show. State requirements vary, but some don’t even ask students to fire a weapon before getting a carry permit. We should enforce high standards for instruction, including extensive live firing, role playing, and serious examination of the legal issues. Since people can carry guns state to state, standards should be uniform. States should require a refresher course, the way Texas does, before renewing a carry permit. To their credit, most gun carriers I’ve talked to agree that training should improve, even if some of them get twitchy at the idea of mandates. The Second Amendment confers a right to keep and bear arms. It does not confer a right to instant gratification.

Baum said he’d probably stop wearing his gun. He missed “Condition White,” he felt it put up a barrier between he and his friends. It “militarized” his life and he didn’t like it. And I don't like it either. I don't want to live in a militarized community, just as Dan Baum didn't want to live a militarized life.

Tennessee is a nice place to live. Nashville is a nice city. One always hears that it's "a great place to raise a family." Bringing guns into every school, church, restaurant, bar, park, etc. will change that spirit. And I don't like it.

Apparently Guns DO Kill People

Remington Arms Co. evidently considered a nationwide recall for its Model 700 hunting rifle, which customers complain will fire without the trigger being pulled. Inexplicably, they decided not to:

The rifle series—which debuted with the Remington 721—featured a unique trigger system patented by a young Remington engineer named Merle "Mike" Walker. Walker has called his design "a perfect trigger," with a smooth pull favored by expert shooters.

According to Walker's patent, the secret was a tiny piece of metal called a "trigger connector," which is mounted loosely inside the firing mechanism. But critics, including ballistics experts who have been hired to testify against the company, say small amounts of rust, debris, or even a small jolt can cause the trigger connector to become misaligned, forcing the trigger itself to lose contact with the rest of the firing mechanism.

Then, the gun can be fired when other parts are operated, such as the safety or the bolt. Barbara Barber says her Remington 700 discharged as she moved the safety to the off position to unload the gun. Others have reported their rifles discharging when they opened, closed or even touched the bolt.

[...]

But internal documents obtained by CNBC show that in 1948—before the gun went on the market—Mike Walker himself proposed a design change to prevent the trigger's internal parts from falling out of alignment.

Other documents show the added cost for Walker's "trigger block" came to pennies per gun, but with the rifle already over budget, officials decided against making a change.

I heard that story on the news last week and my first thought was: even if they wanted to issue a product recall, how much do you want to bet the NRA pressured them not to? Because then us Dirty Fucking Hippies who who say guns are not safe would have been proved right.

That’s certainly how it appears:

Documents show that in later years, Remington decided at least twice—in 1979 and 1994—to abandon the idea of a nationwide recall of the 700 series, in part because officials feared it would undercut their message to the public about firearm safety, including making certain the gun is pointed in a safe direction and not becoming overly reliant on the gun's safety mechanism.

"If proper firearms safety rules are followed, no accidental injuries would ever occur," Remington says in its statement.

Amazing that any accidents ever occur, isn’t it? If all guns are safe, and all gun owners are responsible, fine upstanding citizens, why are our children being maimed and killed?

On a related note, it seems Bill Haslam’s pandering has got him into trouble. He’s tried so hard to look like the “everyman” Republican: the reasonable businessman, the moderate, the family-values Christian. But when he got nailed on the guns thing, his attempt to look like a Zach Wamp-style right wing wackadoodle--pardon the pun--backfired. Ooops.

It’s been kinda cute to watch Haslam backpedal on this one. First he promises to sign a bill that gets rid of carry permits. Then people are like, “hey wait a minute that makes no sense and makes Tennessee look like a bunch of hayseed backwater hicks who love their guns more than their safety.” And he’s like, “well, I’d prefer we didn’t change the law but ... hem ... haw ... I’ll do what the legislature wants. Because while my folksy TV ads show that I’m a leader, I’m not that much of a leader! When it comes to crazy gun laws I’ll do whatever the nutballs say!”

The next few years don’t bode well for Tennessee.

So now we have people who want to do away with the gun carry permits, let everyone carry a gun, anywhere they want! Why the hell not, right? At the same time, you’re doing away with the most modest of public safety procedures, ensuring the person walking around with a weapon is a legal U.S. resident or citizen, not a felon, a stalker, a terrorist, drug addict or a mental case, and more importantly, if any of these things do become true, you eliminate the mechanism for taking the person’s carry permit away.

And the reason some folks want to do this? Because everyone who carries a gun is a fine upstanding citizen! Don’t you follow the logic?

Crazy.

As more people carry more guns around to more places we will have more shootings, accidental and otherwise. Count on it. And some day when the nuts have all shot themselves in the face we can get back to having some sane gun laws in this country. Until then, Congress will pass all sorts of laws protecting the gun industry because they're too cowed by the industry thugs and the NRA.

Three Time Offender

The gun nuts are always saying we don’t need more gun laws, we just need to enforce the ones we already have. I’d like to suggest we start with dealers like Wisconsin’s Eric Thompson, who armed the Pennsylvania gym shooter, the Virginia Tech shooter and the Northern Illinois University shooters.

Wow, does he get some kind of prize for that?

The Gun Guys blog reports:

Now, he has done it again. The tortured misogynist who killed three and wounded nine in a Pittsburgh area gym this week was another customer of TGSCOM, the online arms warehouse that Thompson operates, buying a magloader and a high-capacity magazine from the dealer last year.

Once again, Thompson is telling journalists how upset he is, and how the incident proves that potential victims should arm themselves, to protect themselves from killers. The victims the Pennsylvania killer shot were participating in an aerobics class.

Yes, tucking a pistol in my spandex before heading for pilates class is surely the workable solution.

If bars and restaurants and servers can be held responsible for drunk drivers who were over-served, then I don't see why gun dealers cannot be held responsible for failing to do an adequate background check not once, not twice, but three times. Of course, gun dealers are sued all the time by victims of the people they've armed. It just seems like someone who armed psychotic killers three times in the past few years should face some repercussions for their irresponsible behavior. Instead, he's telling folks that since he's arming the psychos, the non-crazies better arm themselves from him, too.

Of course George Sodini is the poster boy for everything wrong with our shoot ‘em up gun laws:

“The 48-year-old Pennsylvania gym shooter had been issued a concealed weapons permit. The high-capacity magazine he used would have been illegal for sale in the U.S. under the Federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004,” Helmke said. “Why do we make it so easy for these dangerous to get these dangerous weapons? We need to be asking this.”

Why, indeed.

Y’all must be so proud of yourselves.

This Is Why I Don’t Like Guns

A tragic story all the way around :

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- A 56-year-old man was killed with a shotgun by his son-in-law early Wednesday morning, police said.

The incident happened just after midnight inside a home on Maple Street near downtown Murfreesboro.

At about midnight, the victim's son-in-law said he heard a noise and got his gun to check out the situation. That's when he spotted his father-in-law, Dana Jankovoski, inside the apartment and said he mistook him as an intruder.

Tragic that this happened in a home; thank God it wasn’t a public place like a park, school, restaurant, bar, or some place where other lives would be at risk. And I can’t imagine what kind of pain the son-in-law is experiencing right now.

These tragedies are entirely preventable. If guns made us safer, we'd be the safest country in the world, with 90 guns for every 100 people, according to this 2007 report. We've armed ourselves to the teeth but we're no safer than any other country.

It's just stupid.

One Nation, Really Scared

Are we wound a tad too tight, people? I’m thinking yes:

Gun scare defused at Cal State Dominguez Hills

Campus placed on lockdown because of reports of a man carrying a rifle. It turns out to be an ROTC student with a nonfunctioning training weapon.

By Susannah Rosenblatt and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
10:01 AM PST, February 21, 2008

An ROTC student carrying a nonfunctioning rifle on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson prompted a large police response after students reported that they had seen a man carrying what appeared to be an assault rifle on school grounds, authorities said today.

Alarm about a possible gunman at the school lasted for about 45 minutes this morning as school officials went into lockdown and Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies searched for a person matching the description given them by witnesses.

I’m just glad there weren’t any gun-toting faculty or students determined to handle this “threat” on their own. I can see this story having a much different, more tragic ending.

Here A Gun, There A Gun, Everywhere A Gun Gun!

The conservative response to the latest gun violence tragedy proves yet again how ill-equipped these people are to lead this country. On one end of crazy street we have Tennessee’s own state Rep. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, who has reacted to the Northern Illinois University shootings with a bill allowing concealed handguns on Tennessee university campuses:

Campfield's bill would allow "all full-time faculty and staff at any post-secondary institution" to carry handguns when requested to do so by the head of the institution, provided they have received eight hours of training in handling firearms.

The bill also provides that faculty and staff who hold a conceal-carry permit would be able to take their guns onto campus anytime.

Campfield said he considered including students among those authorized to carry guns on campus but left them out "to sound more reasonable."

I think “sounding reasonable” is the least of Rep. Campfield’s worries. In Campfield’s fantasy world, the next time some crazy shoots up a classroom, students won’t just be dodging bullets from one person but from a multitude of armed individuals. Surely nothing could go wrong with that! Lord save us from these idiots who are the heroes of their own movies.

On the other end of crazy street is conservative blogger Rob Port wondering why none of the students “fought back” (it’s all liberals’ fault, of course) and praising this point made by one of his readers:

I am discouraged that no one took their books, laptops, anything and just threw it at the guy, no one fought back. It’s that passivity that troubles me.

Wow, is that compassionate conservatism I smell or just partisan hackery?

Neither Rob Port nor Stacey Campfield were anywhere near these school shootings yet they’re just convinced that more guns and a dose of good ol’ conservative machismo would have saved the lives of these students. Excuse me for calling bullshit.

I know the right likes to paint liberals as “anti-gun.” We’re not, we just read the whole Second Amendment, you know, the part about a “well-regulated militia” and all. I don’t want to get into a debate about gun control, though. It’s one of those things on which the two sides will never agree.

But I do have a suggestion--one actually made by a commenter at Eschaton, and which I think is a brilliant idea. Since the Republican Party seems to think the answer to gun violence is to put more guns in the hands of the people, let’s start with the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, shall we? Why not allow all RNC delegates to carry concealed weapons to the convention.

That should make everyone participating in the convention feel super-extra snuggly safe, right?