It's quite likely that there will be renewed soul-searching over lax gun control laws in the wake of the Connecticut massacre. It's also likely that it will pass faster than a speeding bullet with little having been done.

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photo: Borderland Beat

"My first love was a 22, nice and slim; tucked in my Chucker boots what a priceless gem." -- "Toolz of the Trade," Smif n Wessun

This has the feeling of one of those events that will forever hang with us.   Many may never forget where they were or what they were doing when they first heard about it. It's a feeling roused by the realization that for hours after this event, literally every person with whom I had even the briefest of contact asked the same question: "Did you hear about the shooting?"  

Indeed, there have been few occasions that I can recall such an intensely unified reaction of shock to an act of gun violence involving some yahoo going "postal." It's as if in the hours after the event, the grimy, sulphuric presence of gunpowder residue continued to hang over the nation.

Somehow I don't recall this level of passion in the post carnage reactions and analysis of any of the recent mass shootings. Not after the Fort Hood killings in Texas or the Sikh Temple massacre in Milwaukee. And not after the Gabby Giffords shooting in Toledo or the "joker" theater rampage in Colorado. That series of recent gun massacres resulted in a combined total of 38 Americans dead and 105 injured 105.

I also don't recall in the previous events, an atmosphere of such deflated sorrow that in this case caused so many otherwise hardened law enforcement officials, experienced journalists, seasoned first responders, veteran politicians, and even presidents to become so uncontrollably teary-eyed.   

There seems little doubt that this event is palpably different. It has a 911-like surrealism to it.   But can it illicit the same degree of serendipity to become -- as is alleged of 9-11 -- the day that "changed everything?"   Indeed after the latest in an epic stream of gun-related atrocities, the question for many has to be: will it make a difference?

Here we are. Once again. This time it's Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people are gunned down; twenty of them children, virtually all of them first graders.

And in its wake, the anticipated shrill of demands for tighter gun control will erupt which will bring in response, the trite but clever non-sequitur: "Guns don't kill; people kill."  

Noted.  

However, if one of these "people" fiends with the desire to head out and kill masses of other people this person might consider using a bomb -- especially if he wants to get the job done quickly. A bomb can be acquired, but they're illegal, so it's rather risky. So, to swiftly kill a whole bunch of people, perhaps the best legal alternative is a gun.   And no matter how large or what caliber gun he desires, there is somewhere in America where he can obtain it legally.  

But what's more relevant than the freedom to own and carry guns is the fact that guns kill precisely because "people" own and carry them.   Thus what matters is what a gun can do, not what "people" can and cannot depending upon whether or not they are packing one. What it boils down to is that if "people" want to kill a whole lot of other people -- regardless of whether they want to get it done quickly or take their damn time -- there's a legally-obtainable device specifically designed for that purpose. Beyond that, the device is useless.    

It's called a gun. And while there's little doubt that people will continue to kill even if laws restricting gun ownership were as tough as those that outlaw bomb ownership, the pool of available killing devices would likely be significantly diminished.    

So when it comes to children being slaughtered by bullets discharged by any of the millions of legally-obtained guns in which our nation swims, I can't possibly blame poor parenting; mental or emotional instability; television violence; Tupac Shakur; the stock market; MTV; BET; PEDs; anti-Semitism, racism, too much Red Bull, religion, the Mayan calendar, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, or Hostess Twinkies.

I blame guns.

Regardless of the rationale for owning one; regardless of the "glorious" history of both guns and gunplay and their stake in the emotional crutch of American exceptionalism; and regardless of the dedicated fervor of the bumper sticker N.R.A. logic spat out by some bunkered down Second Amendment connoisseur, what's irrefutable is that guns are designed for one function -- to kill,

Indeed a gun has zero capacity to carry out its intended purpose on its own, a fact upon which the "guns don't kill" semanticists rely heavily.   But that's the point. Yes, guns are an inanimate, unthinking vehicle for the delivery of death regardless of whether the one holding it is an Episcopal priest or just some dude who's bat-sh*t deranged. But not only do guns shoot bullets that kill, they also serve as a surrogate provider of contrived empowerment to far too many emotionally under-endowed macho front artists whose definition of gun control is holding a pistol with TWO hands.

Fair enough. But as a practical matter, our response to gun-violence must also be grasped just as tightly. It's said that the level of a problem's solution must be above the level of the problem itself. In this case, the problem boils down to the right of unfettered ownership of devices designed for the sole purpose of killing.  

My solution? Let every gun nut in America have such devices. Give them their guns -- as many of them as they like. If it makes them whole, then I say let them have all the gats, Glocks, 9-millies, and pump-shotties they want. Give them all unfettered access to as many guns of any kind that they can possibly shove into a back-pack, a pick-up, an 18-wheeler, stretch limo or one of those adorable minivans a lot of the soccer moms drive. Give the people what they want; be it a blunderbuss or one of those street-sweeping AK-47 N.R.A. crowd-pleasers.   

Just make it as financially costly as humanly possible.

Chris Rock once quipped that one way to reduce gun violence would be to charge a thousand dollars a bullet. I'd go a few steps further. Why not a starting price of $500,000 per for something you might be able to fit in a derringer? The N.R.A. insists upon the unfettered availability of guns?   No problem. Let the people have all the guns they want; just make it as hard as possible for the people to load them. We're talking bullet, not gun control. The N.R.A. can't have it both ways and as far as I know, the National Bullet Association doesn't exist.

As for the eventual emergence of a flourishing black market of bullet bootleggers, treat them the same as we do crack dealers and terrorists or child pornographers and runaway slaves.  

Give the bootleggers their own Gitmo. Chase them down.   Hound the sh*t out of them. Drone them where ever they're found whether it's Abbottabad or Manhattan. Those we capture can be displayed in see-through, bulletproof plexi-glass Hannibal Lector-like lockdowns; as much for the spectacle as for the sheer irony of bullet bootleggers imprisoned in bulletproof cages. Meanwhile, if it so happens that from time to time, the efficacy of both their plexi-glass cribs and some newly-confiscated bootleg bullets need gauging -- oh well. Just have the bootleggers huddle in a corner for a while.

Just saying.  

If my position is that fully outlawing gun ownership would make all this unnecessary, the other side's response would likely be the familiar yada: "If guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns." But in truth, any logic to be found in my position could be overridden by the reality inherent in that yada. It is likely that mostly criminals would have guns.   But that's a reality sustained only by the very presence of guns in our society in the first place. Even so, I'm still backed in a corner because of my view that as a species, humans haven't evolved to the point of being able to trust ourselves in a world without guns. But if that view is accurate, it simply confirms the need for strict gun control laws.  

Ironically, it turns out that also on Friday, possibly at the same time the shootings in Connecticut were taking place, a 36-year-old man went on a rampage in China that resulted in a nearly identical number of victims.   Twenty-two children and an adult were victimized by the assailant. At last reports, none of the victims had died. The assailant, now in custody, used a knife. What if it had been a gun? What if the Connecticut shooter had a knife? How likely is it that these outcomes would have been reversed if each man's weapon of choice had been different?

Among the takeaways from these overlapping events might be the awareness of how thoroughly the slogan, "no justice; no peace" exists in symbiosis with another slogan that should emerge in this tragedy's aftermath: "no guns; no deaths." As apropos, it would be aimed squarely at the N.R.A.

The specific 20 victims upon whom this piece focuses were not polarizing public figures nor were they social or political ideologues who perhaps lived by the sword. These were mere children, some barely old enough to process what was occurring around them. More than anything, it's the ages of these innocents that renders so utterly vile, the often selective libertarian-ism of those so mind-numbingly resistant to any form of gun control.  

Children are to be shielded from gun violence, yet, the perspective of our Second Amendment fundamentalists seems likely to presumes that twenty dead kids amounts to anecdotal evidence -- not confirmation -- of a gun problem. Friday's victims? Just collateral damage in the causality loop of their cherished "Guns-R-Us" culture, not the game-changing tipping point brought on by an event so jarring, so difficult to conceptualize that once again "everything changed."  

How many kids killed in one fell swoop of Glock madness is enough to change minds?    

I suspect that for some, the number 20 is simply not high enough.

Authors Bio:

Anthony Barnes, of Boston, Massachusetts, is a left-handed leftist.

"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world." - Unknown Monk (1100 AD)