“I’m going to ask you again…. Can I have a fruit roll up, or not?”

In the past four days, two different four year old kids have shot and killed people in our country. This past weekend, a sheriff’s deputy (who works as a school resource officer) here in Tennessee laid out his gun collection in his bedroom to show a relative during a family cookout. At some point, a four year old kid grabbed a loaded handgun off the bed (not his service weapon), and “within seconds” shot and killed the deputy’s wife. And then two days ago, a four year old kid in New Jersey somehow got his hands on a loaded .22-caliber rifle and shot the six year old kid he was playing with in the head, killing him. These tragic shootings are backdropped by an attempt in Washington to pass legislation to require background checks on all gun sales–extending the regulations that licensed gun sellers already have to follow in an attempt to close the loopholes created by purchasing guns at gun shows and also buying guns on the internet (wait a minute…. THIS IS LEGAL!?!?!??!!).

“I just bought a 1 lb. bag of quinoa, some vanilla beans, and a Glock with a 30 round clip. Gotta love the internet!”

Now, I know that pro-gun people will tell you that “the only people that gun laws affect are people who obey the law,” but here’s the thing: Let’s say I want to buy a gun. The easiest place for me to go to buy one is at a gun store, but I have done something in my past that might get flagged during a background check that would keep me from getting it. Crapo, right? Right now, what I can do is I can go to a gun show or EVEN ONLINE?!?! and purchase a gun without a background check. What Congress is trying to do is take away that giant loophole that people who shouldn’t be buying guns can currently take advantage of. And yeah, I know–criminals might just be able to buy guns off the black market, but do you know what happens to things when you are forced to buy them off the black market? They become harder to get and they become more expensive. How could this seem like a bad idea to people?

Mike Crapo, a Mormon who professes to abstain from alcohol, seen here in a mugshot from his DUI arrest after blowing a .11 blood alcohol level…. Oh crapo!

Well, there are some who think so. Thirteen Senators are vowing to filibuster to prevent a Senate vote on this piece of legislation, S. 649 The Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013, requiring universal background checks (other than sales between family members or when hunters let other hunters borrow a gun). Here are the names of the thirteen jackasses who want to prevent this from even coming to a vote (I have have taken the liberty of hypertexting their names with their phone numbers so that, if you want, you can call them up and tell them what you think of their threat to block this vote): Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Sen. Dan Coats (R-Indiana), Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) who signed on later. I’d expect this kind of stuff from people with names like “Dick Burr” and “Mike Crapo,” but what are the rest of your excuses? PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CALL THESE MEN AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO PULL THEIR HEADS OUT OF THEIR ASSES AND ALLOW A VOTE ON COMMON SENSE GUN REGULATIONS! Remind them that you have money, and that you will be using that money to make sure they never get elected again….

I suppose we’ll have to wait for the tipping point where our collective compassion for the victims of gun violence finally outweighs our fear of not having big enough, strong enough, and enough enough military-style weapons.

Right now, we lack the political will in this country to pass any legislation attempting make it more difficult for criminals to obtain Assault Rifles and high capacity magazines like the ones used to murder 20 kids and six adults in Newtown (because it might infringe on law-abiding citizens’ rights to have 100 round clips for their Bushmaster). Unfortunately, we will probably have to suffer through a few more tragedies like the ones in Colorado and Arizona and Colorado and Connecticut before people will not be able to stomach it anymore and finally tell the NRA (as well as the members of congress mentioned above) where they can put their Assault Rifles. But along the lines of common sense gun regulations, here is a question I have been thinking about: WHY IN THE WORLD ARE PEOPLE NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR GUNS???

Every state other than New Hampshire requires people to have auto insurance if they choose to buy a car–in case something goes wrong and that car is used in a way that injures someone or someone’s property. Why, oh why, do we not have something like this for people who choose to buy guns? This way, if you are the sort of gun owner who keeps her guns locked up and safe, you would have low premiums…. If you are the kind of person who keeps a loaded gun on you at all times, you might have to pay a little more…. And if you are the sort of idiot who allows a four year old kid to have access to a loaded gun, and that kid ends up killing someone (or, perhaps, if you kill someone and blame it on a four year old), your insurance premiums are going to go up quite a bit. I realize that, because of laws put in place by NRA lobbyists to protect gun owners from liability, these people are probably not going to jail for their stupidity…. But I think it would make sense to at least have them pay a little extra on their insurance. That’s what happens to me if I bump into someone while checking my Facebook in my car–It should probably happen when someone lets a toddler have a gun and they end up killing someone….

What a world we live in.