But when it happens in Canada, it’s just, “Shooting reported in Canada”.

Imagine the headline, “Shooting reported in United States”. It would never work, because shootings here are so common that such a headline just wouldn’t contain enough information to be informative.

But “Shooting reported in Canada” does, because shootings like the one that happened today are the exception in Canada, rather than the miserable rule of reality we live with here in the states.

Why is that, do you think? Keep in mind that I live in Texas, where the only suspicious people are the ones who don’t have guns. They’re up to something. Probably liberals. And gay. And communist socialists with Muslim tendencies. Or something. Because that’s just how Texas works.

But the simple truth is that we have more shootings here because we have more guns here. That’s not me being “anti-gun”. It’s just math. The more Legos your kid has, the more likely you are to step on one during a midnight visit to the bathroom. It’s how probability works.

You have more guns / You have more people shooting guns / You have more people getting shot

Sorry, NRA people. Them’s just the facts.

Now, before you label me as a soft on crime, liberal loving Democrat progressive namby-pamby whatever, hear me out. Because I’m not anti-gun. I’m fine with guns. I think you should have a right to buy guns and own guns and shoot guns and make sweet, sweet love to your guns when you’re home alone and no one’s watching. Whatever fuels your engine, chief. Not my business.

But I do think it should be slightly more difficult to buy a gun than, say, a pack of gum. (And don’t start with the old NRA line of “We need to enforce existing laws before making new ones!” – because you won’t let us enforce the existing laws. That’s the whole point.)

Right now, at least here in the Lone Star State, you can go to any gun show (there’s at least a dozen going on within driving distance of wherever you are in Texas, whenever you’re in Texas) and buy as many guns as you want. No ID required. No background check. No waiting period. Just go crazy.

So people go crazy. And they buy guns. Lots of guns. And they’ll be damned if they’re ever gonna let them damn shifty-eyed Feds know that they have them because that’s what Hitler did and then Nazi Socialism something-something whatever. It’s a slippery slope, sort of thing. Because isn’t it always?

The problem is, these same God, Guns, and Jesus folks are the ones pushing for all the damn VoterID laws that they claim are all about maintaining the integrity of the electoral process, and not at all about disenfranchising the voting rights of minorities and the poor. Some of them probably even believe that, too.

Except that it kinda falls apart when you need an ID to vote, but not to buy a gun. Or many guns. Or all the guns.

So I got to thinking…what if we applied the rest of all that good ‘ol boy, southern Tea Party faux-Libertarian rhetoric to guns? What would happen?

Well, let’s see. We’ll start with the Mexicans. According to the hard Right, our neighbors from down south are stealing our jobs, soaking up our tax dollars, bringing infectious diseases that will kill us all, cashing in on our benefits, exploiting our resources, and just generally being royal pains in our patriotic asses.

So we need to build a wall. And have an armed militia patrol it. And keep ISIS out because radical Islam and tequila go hand-in-hand. And then we need to identify, round up, and deport every illegal immigrant currently living in this country, whether they’re eight years old or eighty. And we need VoterID to keep them from usurping our elections.

But they can buy guns.

That’s right. They’re supposedly a terrible threat to the very fabric of our nation, but what the hell. We can’t start requiring ID and background checks and waiting periods and all that bleeding heart crap when it comes to guns. What’s the worst they can do? Gather together to stockpile weapons while “training” in the forest and plotting the violent overthrow of the federal government?

Wait. No. That’s crazy ass white people. Never mind.

“But when you make guns illegal, only criminals will be armed!”

True, but nobody – NOBODY – is saying to make guns illegal. Or to ban guns. Or to do anything at all to whatever precious boom boom phallus you already own. This is a strawman the Right loves to trot out whenever the issue of gun control comes up, as if anyone is seriously proposing any such thing.

That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be harder to buy a gun, though. Because when you start requiring ID and background checks and waiting periods, do you know what happens? The law-abiding citizens can still buy all the guns they want, but the criminals can’t. Not at a gun show, anyway. Not legally. They’ll have to buy their guns on the black market – which they will – but it would cut down on the number of guns they have legal access to, and it’d make the ones that are out there more expensive to buy. Illegally. Because that’s how contraband works, whether it’s guns or drugs or unpasteurized milk.

No one is saying we should get rid of all the guns, because everyone knows that’s just not feasible. We have so many guns floating around the country already, that if we stopped all gun production right now, we’d still have plenty of firearms out there to last us years and years to come. So shut up with that shit.

All I’m saying – all anyone is saying – is that it shouldn’t be quite so freaking easy to buy a gun. And you should have to prove who you are to buy one. And you need to be an American citizen to buy one. (The Tea Partiers should like that one, at least.) And you need to have a clean record. And you need to not have mental health issues that might cause you to snap and start murdering a bunch of people.

“But knives kill people! Why don’t we make it harder to buy knives?!”

Because don’t be a fucking idiot, that’s why. Yeah, knives can kill people, but last time I checked, they had a pretty limited range and a helluva reloading time. Well, compared to a semi-automatic rifle with a full magazine, anyway.

Tell you what. When a knife comes along that can murder 900 people per minute, give me a call. We’ll do lunch. Until then, shut up. (And don’t tell me 900 rounds per minute isn’t a thing. Because it’s totally a thing.)

“But we need to be able to stand up against the oppression of the federal government if they ever go too far!”

Yeah, call me when you have a Navy and an Air Force. Also, tanks. And drones. Lots and lots of drones. With missiles. Read up on military strategy and tactics, too. Historical and modern. Then, whenever you finally figure out that your little AR-15 and your band of merry men don’t stand a chance against the combined might of the largest, most highly funded and well-trained military force the world has ever seen, you can go ahead and shut up, too.

Anyway, I hope I’ve made my point. Because the shooting in Canada was awful, but the shootings here are awful, too. And they’re plural. Because they happen way too often, because we can’t seem to pull our collective heads out of our cavernous asses long enough to come together and say, “Hey. Hey, guys? You know what I was thinking? I was thinking maybe we all might live a little longer if we stopped being so damn stupid about every damn thing all the damned time. For once.”

Ah, but I’m a dreamer.

Goodnight, kids. I leave you now with an actual conversation from the future. Seriously, it’s totally legit. I have a flux capacitor and a Mr. Fusion and everything.

Yeah. It’s like that.