Signs And Symbols

 Congressperson Barry Moore from Alabama would like to adopt the AR-15 as our "national gun." We have a national bird. We have a national tree. Why not a national gun? 

If you are currently nodding your head and saying, "Yeah! Why not?" Please stop reading now.

All clear? Good. 

We do not need a national gun for the same reason we don't need a national poisonous gas. We, the country that has all the guns, is not really in a position to choose. Once guns outnumbered human beings in these United States, we lost our perspective about which one is arguably "the best." 

Of course, this really isn't the point Barry is trying to make here. It's just a line in the mud that emphasizes his insistence: “One rule to remember: any government that would take away one right would take away them all.” That right he's talking about is, as usual, the right to bear arms. Not just a revolver or a shotgun to keep pests and predators away. A great big semi-automatic weapon created with the sole purpose of shredding human beings. Very little of our nation's proudest moments have come at the end of an AR-15. Uvalde, Atlanta, Las Vegas. And on and on and on. There is probably no coincidence between making this type of monument to death and the failed arguments for keeping statues of Confederate "heroes" around. Some people just want to watch the world burn. 

Over and over again.

Meanwhile, many of us on this side of the argument continue to butter our arguments in such a way as to not conflict with that most holy of holy, the Second Amendment. "We don't want to take your guns. We just want to put some common sense into the way we blunder about with them." We step into the ring looking for a solution that will make the nuts who insist that they need as many guns as they can afford because it is their right have some sort of point to make. Instead, I say we start saying what we really mean: "Yes, we would like your guns because people are getting killed with them. We want to put them away so that no one else gets hurt just so you can feel some sort of angry connection to the rich white slave owners who penned that antiquated piece of legislation."

Or maybe we should take the words from some other good ol' southern boys regarding guns: "You ain't good for nothin'/But puttin' men six feet in a hole." National gun? How about national disgrace?