No kidding, gun control is a joke
Mainers may soon get to vote on a red flag law, and it’s well past time. For too long, irresponsible people have been waving red flags, putting the public in danger by attracting bulls.
Or maybe they’re commies looking to overthrow the government. In which case, off to the gulag with them.
No matter. Once this referendum passes, it’ll be illegal for anyone to flap around a red flag unless they’re challenging the call in an NFL game.
On an unrelated matter, the Maine Legislature is being asked to pass a law banning ghost guns, which appear to be guns used by ghosts to shoot other dead people. This seems sort of pointless, since the victims are already deceased.
As can be seen by the preceding paragraphs, gun control is a complex issue that is easily misunderstood and manipulated by partisans of both positions, as well as political columnists. If you were going to take sides among these frothing-at-the-mouth factions, I’d go with the guys with the non-ghost guns. It’s not that they’re more likely to be right, but the real gun thing gives them an edge in settling disputes.
By the time you read this, it’s likely the red-flag people will have submitted enough signatures to get a referendum on the ballot this year that will allow police or family members to request an order from a judge allowing the seizure of the guns of anyone they consider a threat. That differs from everything you read in the first paragraph (which I made up), and it also differs from current law (which is equally ridiculous, but I had nothing to do with it), which requires anyone the authorities believe is behaving weirdly to undergo a mental-health evaluation before a judge can take away their firearms. This so-called “yellow flag law” may seem complicated, time-consuming and generally at odds with common sense when it comes to dealing with armed and agitated persons, but it turned out to be the best that could be squeezed through a Legislature full of armed and agitated persons and a governor whose sanity is best evaluated in light of her hints that she might run for the U.S. Senate in 2026.
As for ghost guns, there’s no evidence of guns in the afterlife. What exists are gun parts you can buy in kits, sometimes without a background check. Or you can crank up the 3D printer and print yourself a gun. Again, no background check. And no serial number. Untraceable weapons for your killing pleasure. I suppose, in keeping with the semaphore metaphor, we should call the statutes that allow this “green flag laws.”
Maine recently passed a three-day waiting period before unstable persons (all of us) could purchase a gun, but that’s being challenged in the new Legislature and in court. Given the mushy state of judicial precedent, there’s a reasonable chance this restriction will be found in violation of the 2nd Amendment. If not, there’s a reasonable chance this law will be effective in delaying the next mass shooting by three days. Carrying an irrational grudge for that long doesn’t seem like too much of an imposition on those with murderous intent. Nor does requiring homicidal individuals to do a little planning ahead.
There are those who believe gun violence is no laughing matter, and I can understand their point of view, without actually respecting it. After all, being serious about gun violence, which mostly consists of offering thoughts, prayers and similar diddly squat, hasn’t worked in enacting any meaningful laws that might make it harder to kill people.
The one exception to the anti-humor rule is insurance executives. It’s OK to joke about shooting them. They’re all bastards, anyway, and their kids will get over it.
An additional note about killing insurance executives: If we’re going to take a light-hearted approach to that sort of thing, we ought to require shooters to get a license and set a bag limit of one exec per season. We don’t want chaos.
Wait. Don’t shoot that CEO yet. I just thought of a way the insurance industry can help curb gun violence. Have you ever filed a claim for any kind of insurance? Complicated, isn’t it. Incredibly difficult to extract money from those creeps for even the most commonplace of illnesses, accidents or deaths. The insurance industry specializes in making rules so convoluted they’re impossible to follow.
What if we required all guns to be designed by insurance executives? The triggers would be backwards. The barrels would be twisted. The square bullets wouldn’t fit in round chambers. There would be no way to kill anybody with those things, unless you hit them over the head.
Of course, hunters would complain they couldn’t shoot deer, moose and squirrels with such ineptly engineered weapons. It would spell the end of Maine’s grand hunting tradition.
Relax. In the next few years, technology will completely revamp the hunting industry. Those sportsmen won’t need guns when they have killer drones.
Shoot me an e-mail at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
