War of the Worlds

OK, so here's the thing:  Although I didn't vote for George W. Bush (twice!), and I felt he was an extremely poor choice to lead our nation, I never... not even once... actively hoped he would fail or supported efforts to stymie or derail his presidency.  He was who he was, and I accepted the election results, regardless of how certain I was that he would be a disastrous POTUS. It's how we voters pick our leaders, and sometimes we don't get what we want, but at least we don't go around shooting each other over the results.  Not yet, anyway.

As John Stewart once said, "Losing an election is SUPPOSED to taste like a shit sandwich."

I eventually came to despise W for a lot of reasons, all of which turned out to be 100% justified... that's the facts, Jack. He left a steaming pile of fail inside the White House, and no amount of historical whitewash will ever negate the terrible mess that greeted Barack and Michelle when they dropped their bags in the foyer and surveyed the excrement-covered landscape. Some had accused me of suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome... so be it. At least it was easy enough to support my reasoning, because everything about W was simply awful, a snickering dolt born with every advantage life could offer, yet he still fucked over the whole nation and then skipped off to paint bad outsider art.

Fast-forward to  MY2014 and there's no doubt about it... halfway through his historic second term in office, Barack HUSSEIN Obama has been the most successful, most articulate, most intelligent, most progressive POTUS in my lifetime.  He's nowhere near perfect, but who actually expected him to be?  Certainly not me.  Funny thing is, there is a certain segment of our citizenry who have slightly differing opinions, such as:

"Barack Hussein Obama is the anti-Christ!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is not an American citizen!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Socialist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a tyrant!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Christian-hating Muslim!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is coming to take away my guns!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Communist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a weak-kneed pansy!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Fascist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama wants to destroy America!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Marxist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama wants to shove homosexuality down my throat!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a racist and hates white people!"

"Barack Hussein Obama has destroyed the American economy!"

"Barack Hussein Obama supports murdering the unborn!"

"Barack Hussein Obama... (place your favorite anti-Obama epithet here)!"

I get it... I really do. There are many people in this country who hate, and I mean H-A-T-E our country's first Black President. They are convinced he is not an American citizen, was not legally elected (twice), and that he is hell-bent on reducing our country to a sniveling shadow of our former glorious selves, a populace of sheeples who are addicted to gummint healthcare and free everything.

IMHO, anyone who agrees with any of the incredibly misinformed-yet-popular anti-BHO comments listed above can be described by one word: MORON (Noun).  Also see:

syn. = fool, idiot, dummy (slang), berk (Brit. slang), charlie (Brit. informal), tosser (Brit. slang), dope (informal), jerk (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canada.), ass, plank (Brit. slang), prick (derogatory slang), wally (slang), prat (slang), plonker (slang), coot, geek (slang), twit (informal, chiefly Brit.), bonehead (slang), chump, dunce, imbecile, cretin, oaf, simpleton, airhead (slang), dimwit (informal), dipstick (Brit. slang), dickhead (slang), gonzo (slang), schmuck (U.S. slang), dork (slang), nitwit (informal), dolt, blockhead, divvy (Brit. slang), pillock (Brit. slang), halfwit, dweeb (U.S. slang), putz (U.S. slang), fathead (informal), weenie (U.S. informal), eejit (Scot. & Irish), thicko (Brit. slang), dumb-ass (slang), gobshite (Irish taboo slang), dunderhead, numpty (Scot. informal), doofus (slang, chiefly U.S.), lamebrain (informal), mental defective, fuckwit (taboo slang), thickhead, muttonhead (slang), nerd or nurd (slang), numbskull or numskull. (Thanks, freedictionary.com!).

Heh heh heh... some of those are priceless.

Of course, most (if not all) of these synonyms could apply to anyone who honestly and sincerely believes that BHO is a Fascist or hates white people, but for me, MORON will do just fine, thankyouverymuch. If that offends you,well...  too bad, so sad, my blog, go read Infowars.

The reason I believe these tags are appropriate is because the vast majority of BHO-haters live in a world of their own creation, one which has no relation to the world the rest of us inhabit. Haters gotta hate, no matter that their memes are proven to be bunk, their accusations baseless and/or meaningless. They disregard facts and reason, holding like rabid pit bulls onto their hatred of 'That One' with the same blind zeal with which they stubbornly look to the Second Coming of Jeebus.

Let's take stock of the real world shall we?

Barack HUSSEIN Obama is a man, a human being, a mammal, a terrestrial inhabitant. He is mortal and will eventually die as all mortals do, including you and me. He is not inherently evil, unless you count moderate centrist DemocRats as the mewling spawn of Satan.  He was borne of two people from different racial groups who fucked and produced a bi-racial offspring, again not an unusual occurrence. He is made of blood and bone and sinew and skin and all the other hallmarks that make humanoids the (apparent) top predator on this spinning Blue Marble.

In other words, he is EXACTLY like each and every single damned one of us air-breathing skin bags, skittering along the surface of Terra, mating and crapping and breathing and trying to find a really good hamburger. The level of melanin in his skin and the specific content of his brain are perhaps the only differences that he (like the rest of us) has from every other mammalian bipedal homo sapiens that inhabits our microscopic speck of astral dust in a vast universe that doesn't give two shits about us, way out here on the edge of a tiny and unspectacular galaxy.

Given his unremarkable humanoid stats, BHO decided at some point to devote his life to the public realm and found himself on a path leading to the helm of arguably the most prosperous, most racist, most diverse, most purposely ignorant country on the planet. This decidedly normal human took the reigns of his post and set sail on a journey that would show him to be a moderate populist, a thoughtful advocate and a strategic thinker. The curtain has yet to drop on his second term, but so far it seems the un-skewed reviews are mostly good, the results positive, the legacy TBA. However...

"HE'S A COMMIE!"

The economy has been stabilized and turned around, generating positive job growth, mostly decent and dropping unemployment numbers, and a solid chart of overall health. The stock markets are seeing record highs, the wealthy are getting even wealthier, and corporations are raking in huge profits.  The federal deficit has been cut in half... IN HALF (you DO know the difference between the deficit and the debt, right? RIGHT?!), federal spending has been dramatically reduced, and the Affordable Care Act is on track to reduce the deficit even more as healthcare costs start to drop. But no, he's a commie.

"HE WANTS TO DESTROY AMERICA!!"

The two illegal Bush wars of aggression have seen US armed forces deployment (mostly) ended, the Libyan conflict resolved via political gamesmanship, and Bush's totally ignored Public Enemy #1 has been dispatched to party with Allah.  Barry's calm and strategic responses to worldwide conflicts has resulted in NO NEW WARS, and so far there have been no acts of foreign terrorism on our shores (homegrown domestic terrorism is another matter entirely). With only a few exceptions, our allies around the world have established closer ties with us than we've seen in decades, and our international leadership role has once again been established as the benchmark for most first-world nations. Although the dueling crisis' in Ukraine and the Middle East are running on their own searing levels of ethnic and religious hostility (I'm looking at YOU, Jews and Palestinians!), BHO is demonstrating the steady gaze of a leader who knows that solutions take time and intelligence to resolve. But no, he hates America and wants to destroy us.

"HE WANTS TO TAKE AWAY MY GUNS!!!"

In spite of repeated and all-too-familiar shooting tragedies, not to mention the fact that over 80% of the American public wants far stronger controls on gun ownership, this so-called tyrant/Marxist/Socialist/Fascist has not used his unilateral power to limit ammo or gun purchases, establish draconian registration guidelines, seek out and confiscate caches of weapons, or even try to mitigate the truly insane 'open-carry' phenomenon that has dimwits (informal) and idiots (slang) packing heat while shopping at Target.  Much as I wish he would, BHO has decided that without the support of the GObstrucionistP members of Congress, he simply cannot compel the gun fondlers and ammosexuals to put down their penis substitutes and think about the rest of us unarmed targets.  But no, he's a tyrant who is coming for you guns.

"HE'S DESTROYED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY!!!!"

Unemployment numbers are now below 7% nationwide.  Job growth has been increasing for almost fifty straight months.  The Dow is consistently over 16,000 and rising.  Corporate profits are at record highs. Consumer spending, which accounts for a major portion of domestic GDP, is growing and growing.  Small businesses are making strong gains in every market sector. Personal credit card debt is down. Durable goods purchases are up... WAY UP. The automotive industry and housing markets are booming, with sellers making big profits on homes that were underwater only 5 years ago.  But no, he's destroyed our economy.

(sigh)

I often wonder how it is that we have such a large number of people in this here US of A that are so willfully misinformed, so narrow-minded, so recalcitrant that they would negate or overlook or simply ignore the facts in this post-W America.  Has their venal mindset totally fried their collective cortex?

Hatred is what it is, pure and simple.  Unvarnished, acidic, mind-numbing hatred.

Hatred of people they can't or won't be troubled to understand or accept.  Hatred for those with a grander vision than themselves.  Hatred of those whose life decisions are made on the basis of intelligence and consideration and love, rather than religious voodoo or spite or bigotry or stupidity or rage.  Hatred of those who don't get all gooey and moon-eyed over holding a loaded weapon in one hand, a bible in the other, all while wrapped in an American flag bought at Wal-Mart.

"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a true story:  In my neck of the woods, here behind The Orange Curtain of Southern California, we have a special breed of ignorance and hatred codified by six-figure incomes, gated communities and politely subtle racism. Our daily newspaper, The Orange County Register, is rife with condemnations of BHO and his policies, from the front page to the editorials.  Naturally, the Op-Ed Letters section is chock-full of spittle-flecked hostility towards Barry, but over the past six years I've been able to get counterpoint letters published that gently remind folks of an alternate world, a different viewpoint, one without hatred.

Last year, after the OCR ran another letter that was filled with hyperbolic misinformation against BHO, I responded and was graced with being published yet again.  This time, however, was different.  A few days after my letter was run, I was at work and got a call from The Artist:

Her: "Ummm... you got a weird letter in the mail today."

Me: "What do you mean by weird?"

Her: "There's no return sender info, our address is hand-written, the envelope is really thick, and something is sliding around inside."

Me: "Don't open it, put it down, wash your hands really good and I'll have a look at it tonite when I get home."

That evening, holding the weird envelope with gloved hands, I was disturbed by the appearance, the thickness, the sliding contents, the general creepiness of this unsolicited mystery envelope.  I called the local PD, explained my concern and was told to bring the envelope down to the station for further scrutiny because one never knows what one may find in one's weird mail.  John Law arrived, agreed about the suspicious appearance and, wearing gloves and using his HUGE knife, gently sliced open the envelope on the hood of his cruiser.

Inside was a sheaf of papers, folded several times to fit inside the standard-size envelope, with a long and rambling type-written single-spaced message about the evil anti-Christ Commie Obama, his roster of impeachable offenses, how he had bamboozled America so that he could destroy our way of life, and that my published op/ed letter proved that I was nothing more than a liberal scum dumbass (slang) patsy to his machinations.  Mr. Law and I read the thing together, amused at the mental images we had of the writer. However, it was the last sentence of the miscreant's letter that caught us both out:

"By the way, based on the Google image of your house, it looks like you should water the lawn a bit more often.  You never know who might be looking at your yard."

John Law looked at me, I looked at him, and we both knew what the other was thinking: this person is a wingnut wacko and had issued a veiled threat against me.

Me: "That's pretty disturbing, the idea that someone unknown to me has my address and knows where I live and sends me an anonymous threatening letter.  What kind if nutjob does that?"

John Law: "Yeah... well... it happens to me all the time, especially from people I've arrested. Your name and city were on the op-ed piece, so it was easy for him to find you online.  I wouldn't worry too much about it, people like this are harmless."

That was it.  He advised me to always call the Po-Po when weird mail arrives, and maybe not to write any more Letters to the Editor of our local right-wing rag.  I was dumbstruck at the notion that someone I didn't know would take the effort to threaten me personally simply because I used a newspaper open forum letter to state an honest and informed opinion. WHO FUCKING DOES THAT?!?!

Trick question, I already know the answer: someone who is filled with hate and rage and anger and hostility and misplaced angst does something like that.  Someone who uses anonymity to threaten someone else without fear of being found. A typical dickhead (slang).

"Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you." -- Wayne Dyer, author, psychotherapist

The Tea Party-controlled US House of Representatives recently voted to file a lawsuit again BHO for overstepping his authority as President.  His heinous crime: using his enumerated Executive powers to delay the implementation of certain employer mandate elements of the Affordable Care Act. Yep... the same august body that voted over 50 times to defund, dismantle and/or destroy the ACA is suing our Black Panther President for not putting it in motion according to a hard timetable.  The same group of regressives that have worked tirelessly to stymie, obstruct or completely ignore any type of honest lawmaking, their one true responsibility.

This has never happened before in the history of our nation.  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives are suing a sitting President for doing his job because they refuse to do theirs. Why? BLACK LIBERAL DEMOCRAT.

No jobs bills... no support for the unemployed... no infrastructure spending... no immigration reform... no healthcare support... no sensible gun control... no informed climate legislation... nada.  Nothing out of their stupid pie-holes except more tax breaks for the already-wealthy, an inquisition against women's health and contraception choices, a thick and gooey shmear of religious insanity and the never-ending hatred of the Muslim-loving, America-destroying, Marxist/Fascist/Communist tyrant Barack HUSSEIN (black man) Obama(nation).

Whatever. Schmucks (U.S. slang).

Just today, I got a call from a Very Nice Lady at The OCR about an essay I'd written and sent them before the mystery letter episode, a humorous essay about how we are now all at the mercy of the cretins (slang) who surround us every day, carrying loaded weapons in their cars and blind fury in their heads, ready to pull out their pieces and pop off a few shots at whatever target they can hit with their eyes closed, just like Tombstone, Arizona in 1889.  The VNL said she wanted to run my essay as a column in the paper and needed to confirm a few things about me.  Natch, I was pleased to know that once again, a voice for semi-reason would be featured in the paper and gave her the info she needed.  Then I made a huge mistake.

I told The Artist about it.

As you can guess, she was totally against it, and made it abundantly clear how she felt. I demurred, called the VNL back and offered my sincerest apology, but could she please NOT run my essay?  She understood and agreed to delete it from her files.

Of course, The Artist is right... why tempt fate again?  Why give some delusional mental defective (taboo slang) any chance to feel justified in threatening me (or worse) into silence for my thoughts and opinions, simply because it was PUBLISHED IN THE NEWSPAPER? I mean... who the hell do I think I am, anyways?

 I am a man, a human being, a mammal, a terrestrial inhabitant of Mexican heritage.  I am mortal and will eventually die as all mortals do.  I am made of blood and bone and sinew and skin and all the other hallmarks that make humanoids the (apparent) top predator on this spinning Blue Marble... an air-breathing skin bag, skittering along, mating and crapping and breathing and trying to find a really good hamburger.

I am not The President of The United States, but I am just as determined, just as passionate, just as dedicated to equality and compassion for every single person living in this amazing, crazy, beautiful, screwed-up country, no matter who or what they are or where they came from. Armed or not.

"You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us – the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this – when you choose to broaden your... concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers – it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help."                           -- Barack HUSSEIN Obama, 44th U.S. President

Lead image, muchismas gracias de hdwallsized.com; 1 Giant Leap 'Braided Hair' video, gracias de youtube.com; we are all just Bozos on this bus.

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

So, the next Great Debate is upon us: our national obsession with guns and violence. Yep, all it took was another in a long series of ostracized outsiders/lone wolfs/mentally unstable yahoos with a Glock and 31 Wal-Mart bullets to cap a bunch of citizens in a grocery store parking lot. This time, tho… Fine Young American Jared Loughner had the bad luck of choosing Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords as his primary victim, so he’s gonna get hammered by the legal system no matter how crazed or demented his mental state was/is. Thankfully, Gabby is getting better every day… all my positive vibrations go out to her and the other survivors. I grieve for the dead and their families.

This situation leaves me with a feeling of disgust, because although there is mewling and bloviating and screeching from all sides on this horrid crime, we’ll likely see nothing of substance change with regards to gun ownership, sales, registration, shows, accessories… nothing will change. I’ll be gobsmacked if ANYTHING gets through the Congressional Star Chamber to alleviate this firearms firestorm.

But that’s not what has me contemplating my navel right now.

What has me mystified is this: what is it about guns that has such an addictive hold on so many of our citizens? Why do people feel the need to arm themselves with enough weaponry to stage a small coup? What is the mindset that pursuades people to strap a heater on their hip and mosey into a coffee shop, daring someone to question their ‘freedoms’? What is the attraction of posessing the capability to end another human’s life with the simple pull of a trigger?



I’m not gonna wade into the legal and political issues of gun ownership. What intrigues me is the personal and philosophical side, the muse that beckons, the siren’s call to hold and caress and fuss and fawn over an instrument of instant death. How romantic, eh? This is an important distinction, because although I am by no means a gun guy, I understand the nature of our society, one that has at its very core a deep and abiding love of the speeding bullet. It is pervasive. It is apparent in every aspect of our modern culture, our media, our collective psyche.

If you doubt that we are a gun-obsessed nation, watch a few hours of network television on any given night and count the number of times you see a gun being pointed and/or fired. It might surprise you to see it over and over and over and over. Even the commercials make it a point to show the gun… point the gun… shoot the gun. Are you and/or your kids fans of video games? If so, sit down with your collection and count how many of them are first-person shooter games. Do you have a movie collection? Count how many of them have a central character that will ultimately resolve the plot development using a firearm.

Pervasive... ingrained... ubiquitous.

OK, maybe you don't agree with my premise, which is counter to popular opinion, especially knowing there are almost as many weapons as there are people in this country. However, my goal here is to help myself understand the gun thing... if the reader gets a tiny nugget of clarity as well, then I am a Happy Camper.

First and foremost, guns are for killing. They are designed, manufactured and sold with only one capability: to render lifeless that which is at the receiving end of the bullet thrown at high velocity from the end of the barrel. Yes, you can use it for hunting or target shooting or Russian Roulette (a.k.a. 'self-protection'), but it really doesn't matter what the individual purpose may be. It doesn't issue warnings or threats, it doesn't convince or cajole or demand, it doesn't posit or pontificate. It's a gun... it's designed to kill. That's why I prefer my version of the old saying, "Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people." Dying by bullet is a crappy way to go, because it was another human being who pointed that gun and pulled the trigger.

I've often commented that if we treated gun ownership in the same way we treat automobile ownership, i.e. educating, testing, licensing, registering, insuring, re-testing, restricting... we'd be much better off. That concept illicits howls of derision and contempt from my gun-owning friends, who mostly feel that there should be absolutely no oversight to their weapons fetish. "Dude, it's in the Second Amendment! Besides, cars kill people too!" I love it when they say that, because my first comment is that cars are designed to transport humans and cargo... they typically only kill when the humans involved fail at their task. My second comment is to ask if they've actually read and understand the Second Amendment to The Constitution as it relates to gun ownership, but that's another essay entirely.

When I was in Boy Scouts, I earned my Marksmanship merit badge by learning proper gun etiquette, demonstrating my prowess on a gun range with a variety of weapons, and answering questions about handling them. In later years, I would have additional chances to blast away at targets and junked cars, but for some reason the gun bug never bit me. I've never owned a gun, never had the desire to own a gun, never had the situation where I needed a gun for self-protection. I only have to think about guns when confronted by someone else carrying one or when I have to walk in front of the business next door that sells semi-automatic weapons to large males driving large American trucks with large piles of ammo cases in the back.

Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #1: The Second Amendment to The Constitution of The United States of America.

'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'

The Second Amendment was written before this country had a standing military or local police forces (Thanks, socialistic tax revenues!), and it's a subject that could be argued for days. Suffice it to say there are wildly divergent ideas about the meaning, intent and interpretation of The Second Amendment. You may already know where I stand on it. I'll not belabor the issue here.

Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #2: Self-Protection.
My life has been negatively impacted by guns exactly twice: 1) when my two Uncles were killed in a shootout with police after a failed grocery store robbery, and 2) when my gang-banging cousin was capped on a SoCal street. That's it. In both cases, the individuals were exercising poor judgement and wound up, you know, DEAD. Of all the other family and friends that I know (or know of), none has ever been threatened or in a dangerous situation where they needed a heater in their hand. I'd submit that the vast majority of gun owners fall into this category as well. Where you live, what you do, the company you keep... all these things can increase your chances of needing or being at the receiving end of a gun. (I bet that went over well, right?)

My gun-owning friends, of which there are many, all say the same thing: "HA! Wait until you need to protect your home from an intruder, or someone holds you up, or you're attacked. Then you'll wish you had a gun!" My response is always the same: "So... how much time of each day do you spend worrying about something that, as statistics prove, will most likely never happen to you?" When I start asking them if they are also constantly worried about driving on the freeways or of a ladder accident or eating raw seafood-- all circumstances that are far more likely to cause injury or death -- they insist that I am changing the subject. BANG ZOOM!



Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #3: Personal Freedom (Part 1).
In this case, as it relates to the notion of 'open-carry'... that is, the ability to carry a unconcealed and unloaded weapon in public. The open-carry proponents argue that if everyone was armed, no one would be a victim (?!?!). That if there had been more armed citizens in Tucson on that fateful Saturday, fewer people would have been shot and killed. That an armed populace encourages lawful behavior. These rationale demand adherence to the idea that 'our freedoms' give us the legal right to carry a piece in public... anytime, anywhere. Don't like it? Don't tread on me, friend.

I live in Orange County, California... a bastion of Deep-Red Republicanism with a seething hatred of taxes, President Obama and 'them damned illegals'. I do not live in a war zone. I do not live in a crime-ridden city. I do not live in Tombstone, Arizona circa 1880. I also just found out that it is legal to open-carry in this lovely slice of the country. I DO NOT WANT GUNS ANYWHERE NEAR ME, DAMMIT!!!! Unless you are a law enforcement officer grabbing coffee or giving me a ticket, keep your death stick away from me. There is no sane or logical reason for anyone OTHER than law enforcement to pack open heat in The OC. Honest!

My new awareness of local open carry was raised via a recent gathering of Open-Carry OC, a patriotic bunch who decided to gather with their warm guns at a local breakfast spot on a Saturday morning. Their goal was to demonstrate that their 'freedoms' are law-abiding and perfectly normal. As you can guess, they knew exactly what the reaction was going to be. Some people were supportive, but most were upset that their morning family ritual was exposed to gun-toting strangers creating a stir in the 'hood.

The eatery Manager, unaware of the event until it happened, made the right choice and asked the Po Po to stop in, grab a java and make sure all the weapons were unloaded. No bullets in chambers, but the law doesn't say they can't carry ammo, only that the weapon be empty. Open-Carry OC makes the point on their website that although an unloaded weapon isn't much good, "it only takes 2 seconds to load and be ready for action". Nice. Eventually, Eatery Manger asked the OCOC boys and girls to hit the road, as they were pissing off his customers and making a scene. He VERY brave. Again, that was exactly what OCOC was hoping for... they were prominently featured in a Sunday paper article the very next morning.

Scenario: I am inside The Daily Grind waiting for my Joe to come up when someone walks into the room with a gun holstered on their hip. I have three choices: 1) ignore the gun, avoid eye contact with this Fine American and hope like hell my order is almost ready, 2) smile and ask the Fine American if the piece is unloaded or, if unsure about my safety, ask the Manager to inquire or call John Law, or 3) immediately exit the building, hopefully with my coffee, but at the very least, with my life.

I don't know this armed individual. I don't know if he/she is sober or drunk or drugged or stoned or angry or crazy or depressed or suicidal or hates my shirt or thinks I cut him/her off in the parking lot or that I look too much like his/her ex-spouse or whatever. What I do know is that I am now in the presence of someone who, if they so choose, can instantly kill me with no discernable reason or explanation. Is the gun loaded? What, you think I'm gonna ask?!? I certainly ain't gonna stand there, ignore the death stick's presence and calmly wait for my coffee. Nope, me sees a gun, me exits the room, PRONTO. My personal 'freedom' to buy an overpriced hot beverage has been taken away by a stranger who decided today was the day to strap-on and feel like a god. My choices are now subjugated, my safety is in question, and my decision could make the difference on whether I live or die.

Leave your gun at home, where it belongs. In a civilized society, is that too much to ask? The answer, apparently, is YES.

Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #3: Personal Freedom (Part 2).
This time, it's the concept of owning as many weapons as you get your hands on. The gun hoarding thing is really, truly confusing and scary. However, we are a nation who loves excess in all things, as demonstrated by our other national obsession: food. All-you-can eat pancakes... triple-meat cheeseburgers topped with pastrami... 3-cheese pizza with cheese baked into the crust... 40-ounce soft drinks... the Double Down. We'll stuff absolutely anything into our pie holes and go back for more, burping and belching and scarfing down antacids in anticipation of the next round. No wonder a third of our citizens are clinically obese.

Same for the gun thing. There are many among us who feel their only means of protecting themselves, their family and belongings is to amass a cache of weapons. These are the true believers, the ones who are sure their government is hell-bent to turn them into Socialist zombie-slaves. They might be living next door and you'll never know they have dozens and dozens of firearms, some likely loaded at all times just in case the Tax Police try to knock down their door and send them to indoctrination camps.

I kid... but not really.

The people I read about who actually do have a weapons cache are the quintissential anti-government types who think they will be compelled to fend off an un-American assault on their freedoms by the Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Marxist/Muslim/Usurper/Illegal Alien Comrade Obama, so they are READY. It doesn't matter that the facts don't support their reality... perception is 9/10ths of reality, so perception WINS!

But seriously, the gun hoarding seems to be a reaction to baseless fears and anxiety of 'the other', which is a uniquely American pasttime, as noted in the fine cartoon posted earlier in this essay. Hey, if having one gun is cool, having twenty is downright chill. I have heard a personal story about someone's ex-spouse where gun hoarding had gone to the extreme, which included dozens of loaded weapons stashed in the attic, buried in the backyard and several stashed in the bedroom. Why? Well... WHY NOT? I can't think of anything more conducive to rowdy wedded sexuality than loaded guns under the bed, can you?

Maybe it's simply a matter of going to excess, and if that's the case, so be it. It's been going on for quite some time now, and we are all familiar with the news stories about local police finding a massive collection of wepons in a seemingly quiet neighborhood home. The locals all tut-tut how they never had a clue about their neighbor's predeliction to collecting firearms and how shocking it all is. It could also be a reaction to the crazy directionless world that seems to surround us all, and the pile of warm guns gives us a feeling of security and safety.

Whatever. I... just... don't... get it.

So here I sit, having peeled my brain open to seek an understanding of the American gun lust. I'm not sure if I am any closer to gaining any insight, but at least I finally have a firm grasp on MY perspective, which was the point all along. As a hard-core Radical Progressive Liberal Democrat, I will always champion the notion of an individual's right to own weapons, but within reason and with a hefty dose of social consciousness and civility. As a human being, I am apalled at the casualness of our relationship with the death sticks and the destrucion they cause, but I dinna expect anything to change in my lifetime. As a Father and Son and Husband and Grandfather, I hope like hell that I never again suffer the loss of another to a bullet.

Guns are an integral part of The American Psyche, and anyone who thinks that banning them will solve the problem is fooling themselves. Ain't gonna happen. On the flip side, anyone who believes that the government is trying to take their guns away is just not paying attention. That fact is confirmed by a massive gun-buying spree from sea to shining sea, and sales of 9mm Glocks, just like the one used to pierce Gabby Gifford's brain, are breaking records because the citizenry are certain that they'll soon be separated from those lovely death sticks.

I hope that somewhere in this mass of words, my perspective has offered a note of clarity. I don't seek to change anyone's mind about guns, only to create a space for introspection and consideration. It's what we humans do best, next to polluting our planet, procreating and killing each other. But HEY... like I always say, every day above-ground is a great day.

As always, your comments are most appreciated, but PLEASE... put the piece away first!



'Happiness is a Warm Gun' by The Beatles, 'A Brief History of America' from Michael Moore's 'Bowling For Columbine' and 'Saturday Night Special' by Lynyrd Skynyrd, all via www.youtube.com... Girls with guns image courtesy of www.freakingnews.com