LeftOut

Guns, Goofy, Good Lord—what are you doing?
by Susan Bankston

Lately, the National Rifle Association has been mounting a full-scale Broadway production around the country, including some music and dancin’. If I say it’s Christmas, you better go out and buy some little twinkling lights, and I am telling you the dead-solid perfect truth that the Republicans are encouraging the National Rifle Association’s craaazytime activities to draw attention away from John Boehner’s strange color.

That color ain’t human, y’all.

I know I tend to exaggerate. I’m a fifth-generation Texan; it was born into me. But I could not make this stuff up, and you your-own-self can look it up and verify that I am telling the truth. These guys are putting on a show. Now, I’m gonna tell you that I am a gun owner, but I have brains and know how to use them. That apparently ain’t universally true.

So here we go: The NRA Show!

Naturally, this all started in Texas when the Van Independent School District out in East Texas decided they wanted their teachers to carry loaded guns in the classroom. The school board required teachers to get special training in firearms. They settled on a day at the firing range, where the highlight of the training session was a teacher accidentally shooting the school’s maintenance man in the leg and sending him to the hospital, where he remained in fair condition. The school board decided to go ahead with their program and just do without maintenance men, because obviously that was the problem. Either that, or nobody else was willing to apply for Limpin’ Larry’s job.

Then in February, somebody fired a tracer round at a Dallas indoor gun range/armory. That triggered a four-alarm fire, an injured firefighter, and enough explosions to qualify for the NASCAR circuit. Nobody was arrested because all of that crap is legal in Texas.

And that was followed by Texas Representative Dan Flynn introducing HB-47, which would cut the current ten-hour class requirement for gun permits down to four hours. Flynn explained, “As it is right now, you have to take a day off work to do it. Or take a whole Saturday off.” Yeah, we can’t be spending all day Saturday in class—we have maintenance men to shoot and firing ranges to blow up.

Not to be outdone, this led to Texas Representative Jeff Leech (yeah, really) wanting to make March 2 (which is Texas Independence Day) a tax-free holiday for gun purchases. Because what could possibly be better than a hurt maintenance man, a four-alarm fire, and an AK47, except a tax-free AK47?

This behavior then spread to Arkansas, where Brian Currance tried to shoot his wife, missed, and hit a refrigerator instead—leading to unkind comments about his wife’s figure, or rather the lack thereof. Rumor has it that he plead musically, “I shot the pressed ham, but I did not shoot the oleo down.”

The very next day, a Florida woman drew down on a cashier at Walmart who refused to honor her expired $1-off coupon. When stopped by the police, the woman kept screaming, “You’re not taking my gun!” After the police assured her that the “cold dead hands” thing could be arranged, she gave up her gun, but not her coupons. I’ve seen that coupon show on teevee, and those people scare me.

Three days later, a New York school security guard accidentally discharged his weapon in the hallway. The good news is that he killed the climbing rope in gym class and severely winged algebra, but no one was injured.

Back again to Florida a week later, where Gregory Dale Lanier got shot in the leg by his dog. His gun was on the floor of his pickup truck, but I didn’t have to tell you that, did I?

Next we find out that the NRA field representative in New York City has been banned from owning guns because he’s a wife-whacker. Richard D’Alauro was charged with assault and child endangerment. Police confiscated thirty-nine handguns from his home. Honey, if you need thirty-nine handguns, that alone is proof of paranoia.

Idaho wants to require every adult to own a firearm so they can claim that they have a well-regulated militia. And what could create a “well-regulated militia” more than less regulation?

Finally, to prove my theory that Peter Gent was right when he had his character in North Dallas Forty say, “Freud says that guns are an extension of your dick, Joe Bob,” Illinois State Representative Jim Sacia went on an epic tirade against any sort of gun control, hollering that it’s like asking him to get castrated because people are having too many babies. No, son, we have birth control for that, and gun control to . . . oh hell, castration sounds like a good idea for this guy.

Susan Bankston lives in Richmond, Texas, where she writes about her hairdresser at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., at juanitajean.com.