A Modest Proposal to the NRA

No doubt, these are high aims to shoot for. But I believe, with steady hands and hearts full of prayer, we can hit our target right between the eyes. And after all, isn't that what gun control is all about?
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Friends, gunmen, wives of gunmen,

Since the tragic misuse of The Great Equalizer at Sandy Hook Elementary School last December, there have been 17 so-called "mass shootings" on American soil. Based on the most recent estimates from the CDC, it is likely that at the time of writing, some 25,679 Americans have been Greatly Equalized this year alone.

It is thus with the heaviest of holsters that I write you now. Seriously, my Dickies are sagging and divested of my camo shorts' cloaking verdigris, I fear my midriff is vulnerable to attack by wild fowl or key deer. Possibly Jews. But I digress and this message cannot be forestalled.

It's time for us to bite the bullet: Houston, we have an image problem.

Excuse me, Houston is the name of my bloodhound. Friends, we have an image problem. Ask yourselves, every time there's a "mass shooting," who loses face? (I mean besides those Greatly Equalized.) Is it Barackracy Obama? Is it Al-Qaeda or The Sierra Club? No, it is we: the NRA.

As an organization committed to safeguarding humankind (its wives, bloodhounds, etc.), the NRA ought to be staked boldly on the front lines of the gunfight against mass shootings in America. It's true: our world is more dangerous now than ever before. If you don't think so, put down your leftist rag and open up The Farmer's Almanac. But I believe that when George Washington and Ted Nugent founded our humble splinter cell, they understood that an armed man is the best defense against evil. And small, burrowing woodland creatures. And that a man without arms is handicapped. By God, even back then, before this land knew war, before terrorism or dinosaurs, in that little Texas town called Nazareth, our forefathers saw which way the breeze was blowing. And they shot it.

Now it's up to us.

To begin, let us to enquire after the exact nature of this thing called a "mass shooting." The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines one "mass shooting" as an event in which four or more people are Greatly Equalized. Four! Gentle reader, I ask you, what kind of pussy shit is that? No one called it "mass incarceration" when three buddies and I were arrested for soliciting sex from an underage alligator twice (and then once again the following morning). If I got four journalists together, would you call them the mass media? If four jockeys gave up on horse racing, would you call it a mass-derby-shun?

Nay. I propose we lower the number of mass shootings once and for all by raising the bar for what it means to be mass shot. I leave the details to the bullet counters, but let us settle for nothing less than a reasonable figure, say 14? (A dear friend in the bread business recently told me that thirteen dead has long been known far and wide as a 'baker's shooting').

And if we may enquire as to who is in the greatest need of our protection, we find that a disproportionate number of those Greatly Equalized in these "mass shootings" are in fact young black men. Now I'm not a racist. There are, of course, other races besides white folk, but then who's perfect? Indeed, anytime I see a minority derided in this country, I cannot but put myself in his shoes. How awful it would be to step off the plane to Africa and find myself alone, the only majority there. But I digress and we are under the The Great Equalizer. To elaborate a point raised by one fearless brother in arms: "The only thing stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun [who may, by chance, happen to be black]."

And so can we.

As a loyal lifelong member, I hereby call on the NRA to furnish every young black man in America with a free Great Equalizer. This shall be our Ammunition Proclamission.

So, to recap: No more mass shootings! Free guns for young black guys!

No doubt, these are high aims to shoot for. But I believe, with steady hands and hearts full of prayer, we can hit our target right between the eyes. And after all, isn't that what gun control is all about?

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