By John Loos
It's hard out here for a P.I.M.P.H. (person inclined to be macho and pack heat). You love your gun more than you love Christmas, and your nontraditional love is protected by the Second Amendment, yet it seems like everyone hates guns and hates you for owning them -- that and it feels like every other day Obama is launching elaborate, highly coordinated, perfectly acted false-flag mass shootings to trick the public into thinking we have a gun problem (this from the same government that misspells both your first and last name on your tax return, Bolb Johnqson).
Let's face it: Guns are used for a lot of valid reasons: hunting, protecting the homestead, protecting yourself, party tricks at your Uncle Carl's house, backing you up in case you run into trouble in that strip-mall Chipotle full of middle-school cheerleaders.
I think it's also fair to acknowledge that guns have a huge symbolic significance for many owners. They're not only a weapon; they're a lifestyle choice, a tool to help compensate for things we may be personally lacking.
The joke is that the bigger the gun, the tinier the penis, and while that may be absolutely, 100-percent true in every single case, there are other things guns compensate for. Here are eight of them.
8. Your lack of claws, sharp teeth, and the ability to run faster than your prey.
Humans are oh-so-weak. Even Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would lose in a fight with a really small lion. Your fingernails can't even pick old Scotch tape off the wall, let alone rip the throat out of a deer. Your teeth bother you when the coffee is too hot or the Chunky Monkey is too cold. And the last time you ran more than eight steps, it ended it a gnarly calf cramp and vomit tinged with Jalapeño Popper Doritos. We can't kill shit without guns. Guns help us kill animals! Top of the food chain! Rarrr!
7. The fact that Rhonda took everything.
That she-demon from hell took the house, the Dodge Ram, the first four seasons of NCIS, the kids, your cat Buckshot, the grill that she never used once, your pride, your confidence, your goddamn soul, your manhood (which she kept in a jar on top of the fridge for the duration of your marriage), and the Pampered Chef pizza stone. Rhonda fucked you over big-time and left you a hollow shell of a man with a card table for a coffee table in your small-town apartment.
But she didn't take your gun.
"You're a child!" she said. No, you're a stud. Bang, bang, bang, Clint Eastwood, bang, bang, stud. Look how strong you look while you're brandishing your gun for your latest YouTube video about being a stud! One hundred six views! Rhonda can't take those away from you!
6. The fact that no one thinks you are special.
Man, these days it seems like everyone except straight white men is being celebrated: gays, racial minorities, trans individuals. Has everyone forgotten how bad-ass straight white men are? Does the name Rowdy Roddy Piper mean nothing anymore?
Maybe your gun will remind them how powerful you are. Yeah, you were in the driver's seat for several millennia, at the expense of everyone else. And yeah, racial minorities have had a few decades of perceived equality, and gays a few years, and trans folk about 11 days. But they've had enough fun. It's your turn again, damnit!
5. The fact that you can't do a pull-up.
Why would you need to pull yourself up to an iron bar when you can just shoot it off the wall and let it fall down to you? That's how a real man exercises.
4. Your laziness.
Back in the day, to stand your ground and kill someone, you had to get up, walk over to them, shove some heavy iron blade into their body five or six times, go wash off all the blood in a stream half a mile away, and then spend hours resharpening your blade. That was effing exhausting.
Now you can just drive by someone's house and take care of business while one hand's wrist-deep in a bag of pork rinds. Guns make you a bad-ass with as little effort as possible, which is what being an American is all about. The only way you'd give up your gun is if someone invented a button on your remote that immediately made your enemies and minorities who frighten you explode.
3. Your demeaning job at a big-box store.
Let's review: You can't do a pull-up, Rhonda took everything, you hate leaving the couch and you work for minimum wage in the warehouse of an exploitative big-box store, moving bulk tampons and adult diapers back and forth, because the steel mill in your small town closed and took all the good jobs to China. Your horrible job is absolutely antithetical to being a Man. Your boss is even a Hispanic woman, which is clearly Obama's fault. You need something to remind yourself that you have a big, hairy, low-hanging sack and are the manliest thing to happen since Charles Bronson last took a shit. Guns? Guns.
2. The fact that you played a cumulative 47 seconds in four years of high-school football.
Yet this week alone you've played 47 hours of Call of Duty. #WarIsSoF*ckingHotOhGodI'mGonna... #EverybodyAintAble
1. The fact that you can't find the can opener.
Gotta get that can of baked beans open somehow, right, Uncle Carl? Stand back and watch this!
This post originally appeared on The Second City Network.