persona non grata

Gun Control

This is the story of how gun control impacted me today. It’s not a sad story so don’t get pre-emptively sad.

I went out to Long Island with a friend to go to a shooting range as a belated birthday thing (Google Offers!)

Despite being a Texan by birth and a Floridian for almost 2/3 of my life, I’ve never fired an actual gun before. I’m not a big fan, to be honest. I don’t see the need for most people to own firearms of any sort. However, I’m still a person that likes new experiences and seeing shit blow up, so I was kind of excited to shoot my first gun ever and retroactively vote for Mitt Romney!

We get there and the guy tells us our appointment is invalid because there’s no ammo. There’s no ammo at his gun shop and he hasn’t had ammo since February. Nobody has ammo anywhere. He may get some ammo in a few weeks, but he’s not sure. He’s sorry about your thing you prepaid for that you can’t use, but beyond that, he won’t help you out or give you a refund because he’s pissed off about this ammo thing.

Why does nobody have ammo? Because gun nuts, scared that stricter gun control laws will be enacted in the wake of other gun nuts killing people, are buying up all the bullets faster than they can be manufactured, thus depriving other gun nuts (and wannabes like me) the pleasure of shooting a metal projectile through a tube near or in excess of the speed of sound.

FASTER THAN THEY CAN BE MANUFACTURED.

I retyped that sentence because it’s, you know, core concept. Of course there’s still guns and bullets out there, but a quick googling of the phrase “ammo shortage” leads me to believe that this is a real-deal thing that’s happening and is kind of a problem, even so much that some law enforcement people can’t even get their hands on bullets.

So I say fuck gun control. We’re going to get mired in legislative political filibustery battles over it forever and people are still gonna get shot. Let’s just not talk about it anymore and move on to a better idea.

The more effective solution? Set aside some discretionary budget funds for congress to just buy all the bullets. Supports the economy and handles the gun problem. Apparently.

Now I just want to shoot a gun for the sheer rarity of it. If gun store owners are to be believed, shooting a bullet is like using a $100 bill to light a cigar at this point.