Repost: "I'll even 'hari kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun."

If I were to start carrying a gun (I'm guessing they're fairly easy to get, although I've never owned one), does it mean this idiotic one-way street in front of my house will start running two ways again?

See, it would be safer in my neighborhood that way, and right now, I don't feel safe at all with the street being one-way. Everyone keeps telling me that carrying a gun is about safety -- pack a piece, and you feel safer. So, does it really work?

Or is carrying a gun not enough, and I must go out and actually shoot the street in order to feel safer?

What's the best place to kill an unsafe one-way street -- near the center line, or near the useless bicycle lanes?

Should I aim for the Silver Creek beginning of the world's longest interstate entrance ramp, or closer to the Best Western down at the other end?

But wait: Ammo's not an absolute drop-dead requirement, is it?

I don't actually have to load my new gun, do I?

It's just the deterrent of being known to carry the gun, right?

It's all so confusing. Back in August, The Economist talked sensibly about it.

God, good guys and guns.

... This dilemma is an iteration of a broader question: whether keeping guns makes people safer. A growing majority of Americans think it does—another mistaken conviction. Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Gun and Policy Research says that, other factors being equal, keeping a gun at home is associated with a double or triple risk of homicide. What holds for homes is also true of states and countries: more guns mean more gun-related murders, tragic accidents and suicides.

"Whenever something big happens, we sprint immediately to the partisan barricades."

Photo credit.

Sifting through the social media bilge in search of shelter from the storm, I've come across three articles that stand out. Am I being partisan?

Probably. According to The Nation ...

The real reason we can’t have gun control is that "the paranoid right-wing fringe believes it needs guns to overthrow the government — and even so-called GOP moderates are pandering to them."

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship aren't mincing words.

The GOP on the Eve of Destruction, by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship (Moyers & Company)

... All of these sad examples are but symptoms of a deeper disease – the corruption and debasement of society, government and politics. It is a disease that eats away at the root and heart of what democracy is all about. Remember the opening phrase of the Preamble to the Constitution committing “We, the People” to the most remarkable compact of self-government ever – for the good of all? The Republicans are shredding that vision as they make a bonfire of the hopes that inspired it and, in the process, reduce the United States to a third-rate, sorry excuse for a nation.

Perhaps it's just exhaustion. From the City Journal.

MATTHEW HENNESSEY

American Exhaustion

We are having a political nervous breakdown.

... One thing is clear, however: politically, we are a paranoid-schizophrenic nation. Maybe it’s the fault of social media and cable news, or maybe we’re just wired to expect the worst from one another, but whenever something big happens, we sprint immediately to the partisan barricades. Unrelated events and phenomena seem part of a larger plot—launched and directed, of course, by the other guys. It feels—to borrow the title of Charles Murray’s 2012 book—as if we are coming apart at the political seams. Maybe not since Watergate has America been this mentally and emotionally exhausted.

"God, good guys and guns."

"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got thrown into this war I had a clear understanding with the Pentagon: no guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"
--Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce of television's M*A*S*H (quoted here in 2012)

I grew up around guns, and as an adult, I'd prefer guns not be around me.

To me, firearms are roughly akin to cars, sports and Viagra as penile enhancement devices, and I already have a penis, thanks. Pieces of machinery generally are value-neutral, their performance dependent on the guiding mind of humans. Conversely, human minds infected with machismo, conspiracy theories, hatred, kitchen table Formica and just plain variable mental health issues offer as much cause to be frightened as the typical armed robber, who after all, just wants money.

But: I'm no prohibitionist.

My own professional world of alcoholic beverages symbolizes "legal but heavily regulated," and that strikes me as utterly appropriate. You need a gun to cope, and I need a bottle. More alcoholic beverages to redress alcoholism? I'll get right on it. Whatever gets you through your life, it's all right.

Just leave me out of it.

Mass shootings: God, good guys and guns ... An understandable impulse to self-defence is nevertheless mistaken (The Economist)

 ... This dilemma is an iteration of a broader question: whether keeping guns makes people safer. A growing majority of Americans think it does—another mistaken conviction. Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Gun and Policy Research says that, other factors being equal, keeping a gun at home is associated with a double or triple risk of homicide. What holds for homes is also true of states and countries: more guns mean more gun-related murders, tragic accidents and suicides.

Yet, amid the drumbeat of bloody news, well-meaning, fearful individuals take the seemingly rational decision to arm themselves. Almost all plan to be prudent with their guns. That, alas, is what everyone thinks.

Archie Bunker's editorial on gun control ... from 1972.

Ever since Wayne LaPierre's press conference, this clip has been making the rounds on social media.

Why is gun control so important? It all starts when Archie gives an on-air citizen's rebuttal to a television editorial advocating restrictions on handguns. After enduring Mike's lecture in support of gun control, Archie goes to Kelcy's Bar... where he meets a pair of stickup artists who take his money.

The clip is from All in the Family's season three premiere, entitled "Archie and the Editorial," and first aired on September 16, 1972.