"Look out, the Liberals are going to try to use this to take away our guns." "Let's not politicize this incident."

There is a gun culture in America, and it is driven by fear. We are afraid of people breaking into our homes (that's why I have guns), we're afraid of UN paratroopers invading our country, we're afraid of zombies, vampires, werewolves; all you need is the right munitions to deal with them. We're afraid of government agencies stealing our guns. We're afraid of space aliens, and you can take them out with a gun. Haven't you been watching "Falling Skies"? The gun is the answer to everything, look at Hollywood. Brendan Fraser uses guns to dispatch hostile ghost mummies from ancient Egypt. Reaching for that gun makes you feel safe, and secure; invincible. Feeling bullied? Get yourself the Great Equalizer. Admit it to yourself, damn it. I have. I'm not ashamed to say it, I just have the honesty to not make excuses for it.

Happiness is a warm gun, Rocky Raccoon, Bungalow Bill, the All-American bullet-headed Saxon mother's son. The price we pay for the Second Amendment (at least, the way the NRA prefers to interpret it) is the occasional massacre at a shopping mall, or movie theater, or elementary school; the occasional domestic shooting. The occasional accident. The ubiquity of gun crimes. We'd better get used to paying that price. The trouble is, any one of us may have to pay it at a moment's notice, whether we own one or not. As for gun crime, even if it could be cut back, no regulation or law can stop it, it's already illegal.

Lets be realistic. If all guns were banned, no questions asked, and if even ownership of a firearm was instantly punishable as a felony, the problem would not go away. There would still be a lot of guns around, people would hoard them, trade them, buy and sell them. It would become some perverse badge of civic virtue and patriotism to own them, just so you can fight the Commies and the ATF with them, or those people who want to steal Christmas.

"If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" may be a cliche, but it is nonetheless still true. And if we banned their use, trade and manufacture here, the world would still sell us Glocks and Kalashnikovs. Guns can always be smuggled into the country inside bales of marijuana. Banning firearms would not stop the killing, although it would probably reduce it somewhat.

We could institute reasonable, uniform and enforceable controls on sales, types of weapons, registration, that would help. But gun running is a business, busioness doesn't want that, and business lobbies legislators and advertises to consumers. Too many people profit from it for it to ever be reasonably managed. Our unworkable and impractical patchwork of gun laws is not confused, it is deliberate. It allows the trade to prosper. There is an industry built up around this. Go to the magazine rack at your local supermarket and look through the gun magazines. I call it Second Amendment Pornography.

Some countries, like Iran and N. Korea, should not have weapons of mass destruction. They can't be trusted with them. The American people can't be trusted with guns either, not all of them, anyway. This isn't a problem with regulation or law, or government, or even the Constitution. Its the American people who are fucked up. And as long as they are fucked up, and they have guns, I'm going to make sure I'm armed myself.