FTT Off-Topic: Five Takeaways About Gun Control, Or Why I Want Jonathan Papelbon To Keep His Gun

Less OK Than Background Checks

Wading into the deep end, because it's late and I'm cross and hollering into voids is funsy funsy funsy...

1) As per site contributor Dirty Davey points out, if you really want gun control in this country, you need to look to history to get it.

California has some of the strongest laws in the country, and they were signed into existence by noted lefty and government intrusion proponent Ronald Reagan.

The governor did this because Black Panthers marched into the state capital while legally armed.

Lots of them.

Kind of changes the comfort level a bit, doesn't it?

2) For forty years, radicals on the other side has been pushing abortion pictures into every possible demonstration. Look for something similar to happen soon, and the continued coarsening of public discourse. We're no getting enough of that yet, clearly.

3) Australia is, in many respects, the country that has the most in common with the United States: immigrants, no enemies on the borders, English speaking, frontier life. There was a note perfect piece by John Oliver on the Daily Show about what's happened there since their last gun massacre. It was  17 years ago. Back when the Aussies had a lot of guns. They don't any more. But, hey, nothing to see there. Move along.

4) Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon, in speaking about the Boston Marathon incident, slipped in the inevitable "Obama wants to take our guns away" canard. Now, I could speak to how Papelbon isn't nearly good enough at his job to be against the political tide of his home city, or that athletes should (always, though spouting off is always good for the sports blog traffic) be seen and not heard, or wonder just why a man who makes $13 million a year is such a skinflint as to pack his own heat, rather than hire his own militia of killer babe ninjas. (That'd be my plan. Endlessly more fun to watch in action than a gun, you'd get tax breaks for employing people, and you'd be on SportsCenter every night right up until you got your own reality show. But I digress.)

Rather, I'll leave it at this. I've watched Papelbon throw at people a lot over the years. I've also seen him freak out after losing a game, when he makes, um, $13 million a year. Finally, I'm pretty convinced, given what he says to the media, that he's a grade A douchebag.

So, Jon? The President doesn't want to take your guns away from you.

I do. I think it'd be fun, and a nice way to improve the community.

Also, I'm pretty sure you'd spaz out in a spectacular fashion, and I could use the blog traffic.

But on second thought... scratch that. Because when you own a gun, you are dramatically more at risk of killing yourself with it during a suicidal impulse.

So keep it close, Jon.

And take your job more seriously, along with how the world's just going all to hell.

A few drinks will make everything better, too.

(In the immortal words of Bill Hicks, I'm just sowing seeds here.)

5) Final point... over 90% of Americans can't agree on things like the relative wetness of water, or whether puppies are cute. That's the number in favor of universal background checks. Which means this week's failure could actually be the best thing, politically, for people who care about this sort of thing.

The simple fact is that a background check would have made most people nod their heads and say good, some clown can't go nuts at gun shows and the Internet any more, and probably forget about the whole thing again.

Now, all of the holes are still out there. and if the history of this country is any indication, there's going to be another bloodbath in less than 3 to 6 months. (April seems to be a flash point for this sort of thing, and so does hot weather.)

At which point blue states will pass the stringent laws, red states will go as far as possible the other way, and then we can do all of this again, secure in the knowledge that we live in the greatest country in the world, and with a status quo, in re the mass possession of deadly force in the hands of wildly fallible individuals, with less oversight than it takes to own a cat.

Nothing to improve here! Move along!