"Anti-gun laws are like rich hot chicks: they simply do not work."
-John Farmer
"OKAY, I'M UNLOADED!!!"Today's piece comes with a disclaimer and a half: I have never owned a gun. Not once in my life have I purchased a firearm. I do not belong to the NRA. I am not a gun nut. I have fired weapons on possibly five and impossibly ten different occasions in my life. Most of these occasions involved Pabst Blue Ribbon cans and junked cars. I am just not a gun guy. Guns scare me, they make me nervous, and, when used as an offensive mechanism in civilized society, pretty much reflect the wussed nature of the gun-toter.
That being said, I am against any and all anti-gun laws. And it's not because I love guns or because I feel the need to take out a herd of antelopes with an SKS (though that would be pretty badass). I am against anti-gun laws because they do not work.
Sometimes in life there is just no one to blame and nothing we can do. There is simply evil in this world. We can't legislate that away.Marijuana and cocaine are illegal. I'll bet there are 15-year-old kids reading this who can get it anyway. Prostitution is illegal, yet my girlfriend remains a total whore. Designating something as illegal does little to no good when it comes to actually keeping that something out of the hands of all your someones (I use words how I want; you want pretentiousness, go read The New Yorker).
Which brings me to Germany, a country which has some of the strictest anti-gun laws in the world. Most of their cops don't even have guns. To prove it to you, here is an actual exchange I had with a German in Germany during my one and only summer in Europe nine or so years ago:
Brauni: We must leave the park. Police is walking this way.
Me: Big deal. There's only one of him and he doesn't even have a gun. What do you weigh, Brauni? 200 pounds? We can take him.
Brauni: Kilograms. We do kilograms.
Me: Whatever, man. This cop starts shit and we take him down.
Brauni: In Germany we do not hit the police, even the ones without guns.
Me: You fucking buzz kill.
Brauni: We go get beers.
Me: Now you're talking.
Hours ago, in Stuttgart, some asshole killed 16 people at a school. He used a gun. And that's illegal. The killer was 17 years old and legally could not own a gun in Germany, which runs stringent ass background checks on anyone who wants to own a handgun. The killer allegedly stole his gun from his father and went and spoke a Jeremy in Class Today at his old high school, which actually does sound kind of fun, all things considered (I hated my high school).
The more shootings occur, the more our government will try to limit the sale, ownership and PBR-can shooting of firearms. This will prevent nothing. This will help no one.
Those in power don't want you to have a gun. I don't want you to have a gun. But I'm not gonna force you to chuck your collection of armor-piercing bullets just 'cause some jackass wasn't raised and/or wired right and went and shot a bunch of innocent human beings.
I've written before that sometimes in life there is just no one to blame and nothing we can do. There is simply evil in this world. We can't legislate that away. As Americans, the most litigious and whiny society in the world, we're prone to changing and making laws as a way to punish society for the mistakes of a few weirdos (this is why you're still taking your shoes off in the airport, by the by). These laws are supposed to make us feel safe. They don't make us feel safe because they prevent nothing, they inconvenience us, and in many cases, they are completely ineffective.
And so some Alabaman nut job killed his wife and his mother and some kids. And so this is a tragic day in America and all that. But this is not something that we can make illegal. You can't make crazy or evil illegal any more than you can outlaw sub-freezing temperatures. Life is a messy dirty place and the only antidote to the evil and the insanity is the good and the love. No matter what Hillary Clinton tells you.
In conclusion, the only reason to pass an anti-gun law is to steal power from the people; if a 35-year-old in Alabama goes on a killing spree and doesn't match the body total of a 17-year-old German kid from the day before, it surprisingly causes me to lose faith in the strength of my country; anti-gun laws don't work; and my girlfriend is a whore.
And what can you do?
It's sometimes ugly and messy, this thing called life.
And sometimes, you just gotta keep your chin up, face the ugliness and the messiness, and give it your best shot.