Why Not Join the NRA?

So, now that some dumb-ass kid has walked into another school and shot the place up, we get the usual response from both sides of the gun debate.

The gun people will hunker down for a couple of days and then they’ll remind everyone again that Americans have the ‘right’ to own guns but should always use them in a safe, responsible way.

Of course, walking around the neighborhood with a Glock in your pocket is a safe and responsible way to use a gun, particularly if you used your gun to protect yourself or someone else from one of those street ‘thugs’ who can always be counted on to assault every law-abiding American in sight.

Now the fact that, thanks to the research of Marvin Wolfgang, we know that in as many as half of all face-to-face shootings the person who gets shot is also the person who did something which precipitated the fatal shooting event should perhaps make us consider the possibility that all the talk about armed, self-defense is nothing but nonsense only confirms the idea that maybe, just maybe our debate about the proper role and place of guns in American society is a debate devoid of the most basic facts — oh well, oh well.

And don’t get me wrong. The other side in the gun debate, our side, makes arguments about how to reduce gun violence which are just as devoid of the facts and are promoted without the slightest…