Guns n’ Posers

So, it looks like it’s time to talk politics again.

See, there’s this video from the crazy guy who plans to go out and shoot people, possibly randomly, possibly not, if there’s anything at all done about gun control. He started thinking all the talk on the news about him shooting his mouth off was just plain awesome publicity, ’cause he was somehow building an army of supporters who would help him wage war against the government and defeat tyranny. He probably has changed his opinion about all that publicity since then, ’cause his home state of Tennessee said, “Whoops, man, you’re completely crazy and a likely danger to other people, so we’re revoking your gun licenses.”

Here’s how I feel about gun control issues. I’m generally okay with folks owning guns. I know folks who live in the country or in the mountains — they own guns because they sometimes have dangerous wild animals come on their property, and because it takes a half-hour for the cops to come if they call. I know folks who hunt, and folks who like to shoot at the range, and folks who own a gun for protection (though I kinda suspect they’d be more likely to shoot themselves in a crisis). And I’m okay with them owning that stuff.

I don’t see any reason for people to own machine guns or armor-piercing ammo. And I don’t have a single solitary problem with banning those. It’s called a “well-regulated militia,” and “well-regulated” doesn’t mean “not regulated.”

But aaaaanyway, back to the crazy in the video. These guys actually amuse me a bit. The guys who talk about raising an army of gun fanatics to go out to fight the tyranny of the duly-elected black guy in the White House. ‘Cause real life is not a Stallone or Bronson movie. It’s not a John Wayne Western. It’s not “Red Dawn.”

Real life would, if he was lucky, see this twit shot down by the cops in about 30 seconds. If he was unlucky, he’d shoot a few cops, and then he’d get mowed down by the SWAT team and his family might spend a few years in jail for aiding and abetting. If he’s really unlucky, his War Against Tyranny would go bad wrong, and he’d accidentally shoot a mailman, or a housewife, or a preschooler, or a bunch of preschoolers, and he’d get mowed down AND he’d hit front page news and convince even more people to support gun control.

And if he’s really, really, really unlucky, he or some nimrod he or the NRA are encouraging will shoot at some politician. Then the feds will stick every gun-humping wingnut in the pen or Gitmo, investigate every NRA member down to the lint in their bellybuttons, shut down the NRA in a heartbeat… and they’d do it with the support of an overwhelming majority of the American people, too. ‘Cause Americans enjoy a little smacktalk, they like violent movies and games, they enjoy fantasizing about being the hero with the giant high-caliber hand-cannons defeating the bad guys. But they don’t actually like non-pretend violence. It freaks ’em out, and probably justifiably so. Pretend violence is fun in movies. Real violence leads to real people getting real dead. And people who run around inflicting violence on other people tend to become very unpopular and go to prison for a long time.

Ask the once-popular militias in the ’90s how they liked it when McVeigh blew up the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. The atmosphere got pretty damn chilly, and most of the militias closed up shop quick.

So yeah, the dude’s crazy, but he’s almost funny. He thinks he’s gonna overthrow the government with a half-dozen hicks carrying sawed-offs. You almost wanna watch him try — hillbilly with an AK vs. a bunker buster, place yer bets — if only it weren’t for the chance that he’d put a bullet in someone who didn’t deserve it.

Seriously, we comic geeks love heroic storytelling. We love stories about heroes, both super and otherwise. We read books and comics about superheroes, we play games about superheroes, we watch movies and TV shows about superheroes. But we generally have enough of a grasp on reality that we don’t try to fly off a building or bounce bullets off our chests. ‘Cause fantasy is fine… but you just don’t want to get it confused with reality.

And it strikes me that some of these gun fanatics think the real world plays by the same rules as “The Expendables” or “The Matrix.”

Again, I’m fine with probably 90% of the guns in the U.S. staying right where they are. I would, however, be much happier if the loons who think they can whup the biggest army in the world with a half-dozen pea-shooters, would siddown, have a spoon full of peanut butter, and start thinking of the world a little more realistically. It’s not good for the world when the comic fans are the ones with their heads screwed on straight when it comes to fantasy vs. reality…