Guns, mass shootings, and related.

What to Do: A Post on Gun Laws That Will Piss Off Guntards:
If at its news conference tomorrow, the NRA says it will support some new gun laws, it will truly be a sign of the Mayan apocalypse. But who are you kidding? The NRA is gonna call for arming everyone and blame people who don't have guns for the violence because the NRA is an organization led by slimy, corporate bought-and-owned motherf**kers who are merely a lobbying arm of the gun industry with a huge financial stake in deluding the most vocal, paranoid, and depraved section of its membership. So while Senator Joe Manchin and others who are having a few doubts now about their oath of fealty to the National Rifle Association can say that the NRA should be "at the table" discussing new gun laws, the rest of us, the ones who think that ownership of military-style weaponry is nuts, will have to come up with a way forward from Newtown and the legally-purchased Lanza arsenal that was used so horribly.

The Rude Pundit begins with a sad, simple premise: sh*t that can be done in his lifetime. Because a total gun ban, hell, just a total handgun and assault weapon ban in this country is realistically never going to happen, and, even in the wildest utopian scenarios, it would take decades to achieve.

Countries that have banned guns have not become lawless wastelands where dictatorial Kenyan Muslims put them in forced labor concentration camps. One oft-cited statistic is that Japan only had two gun deaths last year. Let's put that in perspective. We have about 2.5 or times the number of people as Japan in the United States. That means 5-6 gun deaths for our 310 million people. Twirl that around you brain for a minute or two.

Here we go:

1. The basics - stuff that the majority of the country agrees on: Background checks for all gun sales. A ban on all assault weapons and magazines over 10 rounds. This is pretty much the stuff that President Obama called for yesterday. If you disagree with this part, you are such an extremist that we have nothing further to talk about, but, please, guntards, read on so that you have more stuff to angrily masturbate over while tickling your prostates with your pistols.

2. Beyond basics - stuff that is still easy to do but makes guntards beat their heads and scream - Every gun registered. Licenses to use guns, renewable by test every 2 years. A ban on some kinds of bullets, like hollow points. A ban on online sales of weapons. Microstamping firearms. Bullet identification systems. Massive funding of gun buybacks. Limit firearm purchases to 1 a month. Cap the number of firearms one can own unless registered as a dealer. License all dealers. Required use of safety locks and storage in homes with children.

3. Getting radical - Things that aren't especially radical, but in our hysterical nation, seem that way - A federal law against concealed carry of firearms. A ban on large purchases of ammunition. No private sales of firearms. No firearms in homes with people who would not pass a firearms purchase background check. A confiscation of all assault weapons that were previously banned. If those have to be from some people's cold, head hands, well, that's their choice to make.

To all the guntards who would read this and huff and puff and say, "Only criminals will have guns and how will we defend ourselves," the Rude Pundit has not said you can't have a pistols in your home to take down the occasional home invader, even though you're more likely to kill yourself or a family member with it than ever have to face off against anyone Straw Dogs-style.

You own a weapon. You own a thing that is meant to kill people. Respect that. Respect that society has a stake in making sure that your mechanism of death isn't used stupidly or criminally. Statistically, you will never get the chance to be a hero. You will never stop a mass shooting. In fact, pretty much everyone who ever did stop one was a trained police or security officer or ex-military.

You might hate speed limits because you know you can drive fast safely. But all it takes is one person not as skilled as you believe you are to spin out and kill a whole bunch of us. If you speed a lot and get caught, you get your license taken away.  All you gotta do is respect the speed limit, and you can drive as much as you want.

Gun laws exist not to deny you anything, but to protect the rest of us.