The Republic of Fear

Opinion | thepilot.com

Tomorrow night is Halloween, when kids (and many adults) dress up as the things that scare us most — ghosts, vampires, witches, skeletons, etc.

(Bet you thought I was going to slip a Trump joke in there, didn’t you? Nah, too easy.) So let’s talk about fear.

Let’s face it — there’s plenty of fear to go around. America seems to have gone from the Home of the Brave to a Republic of Fear. The country whose president once famously proclaimed “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” now seems to be afraid of everything.

To hear some people tell it, fanatical Muslim jihadists are arriving by the tens of thousands, and even their children can’t be trusted not to murder us in our beds. Mexicans are pouring across the border in hordes that would make the Mongols look like a Sunday School outing, hell-bent on raping our women and taking our jobs.

There are so many mad killers out there just waiting to shoot us all down like cattle for whatever reason that some people feel like they need to strap on a shootin’ iron, Wild West style, to go out and get a Happy Meal with the wife and kids. Perverts are dressing up as women to get into women’s bathrooms by claiming they’re transgendered.

Drug cartels! Knockout gamers! Ebola! Zika! Attacks on the power grid! It’s enough to make you want to run into the basement and nail all the doors shut.

The ironic thing is, though, we’ve actually never been safer. While there’s been a slight uptick in crime this year, violent crime has been falling steadily for years.

According to studies done by the Pew Research Center, more Mexican immigrants are leaving than are coming to the U.S., and Border Patrol reports show that fewer and fewer Mexicans are making the attempt. And 78 percent of that “flood of refugees,” according to figures released by the State Department, are women or children, with children making up 58 percent.

The New York Times used data from the “Officer Down Memorial Page,” which “tracks law enforcement officer fatalities in real time” to show that officer deaths from hostile action have been falling steadily for years and are at historic lows.

Ebola’s been knocked back into the jungle. There has never been an epidemic of fake transgender people sneaking into women’s rooms — believe me, if there were, women would have dealt with it by now.

And yet, if you want to see fear turn to frothing rage, try to point any of the above out to some people. Try to tell them the sky’s not falling, and they’ll scream at you that it is and that you’re part of the conspiracy to keep the fall quiet for political gain.

Why? How do people get so wedded to their fear? It’s easy to see where it comes from. And, no, I’m not going to blame Fox News, at least not exclusively. Again, that would be too easy.

Fear-mongering has been a staple of media, and broadcast media in particular, for years. My wife and I used to laugh at a local newscast that was so obsessed with “alerting” viewers to hazards, including venetian blinds, radon and (I swear this is true) apples, that we ended up calling it “Everything In Your House Will Kill You — Film at 11.”

Now, fast-forward 20 years, expand that across multiple national networks, broadcasting 24/7/365, and every one of them dedicated to keeping you terrified and glued to the set. Add into that brew the internet, the technology that finally made literally true the old saying that “a lie travels around the world before the truth gets out of bed.”

Frankly, I have to admire the courage of anyone who’s not actually hiding under the bed after all that.

So what do we do? How do we get our tickets out of the Republic of Fear? Well, we could just turn off all the fear-mongering media and unplug the internet. But we know that’s not going to happen. So I’d recommend a rigorous regimen of skepticism.

You don’t have to be afraid of something just because some TV talking head or Twitterer tells you to. Be rational. Be logical. Demand to see the evidence. And don’t let them make you afraid.

Happy Halloween.

Trump Buys Into the "Good Guy With a Gun" Myth

thepilot.com:

Donald Trump may be bucking the conventional Republican wisdom on many things, such as whether George Dubbya Bush lied us into the Iraq War and whether or not a presidential campaign actually requires you to have money or a campaign staff.

But on the subject of gun violence, he’s right in line with Republican (which is to say NRA) thinking on the solution: MOAR GUNZ!!

In reference to the recent tragic shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the Prince of Orange had this to say:

“If you had guns in that room, if you had — even if you had a number of people having them strapped to their ankle or strapped to their waist where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn’t have had that tragedy.”

It seems that The Donald has fully bought into the “good guy with a gun” doctrine that’s so prevalent among the ammosexual community. It’s the doctrine which holds that, in an active shooter situation, every armed citizen becomes a steely-eyed gunslinger ready to take out the shooter with one perfectly aimed round, after which they will presumably twirl the gun around one finger before sliding it back into the holster like Val Kilmer in “Tombstone.”

It also appears that in Trumpworld, all of the “good guys” with guns will be on one side of the room with the shooter on the other so the bullets will only be flying in one direction.

There are so many problems with treating this fantasy like reality that it’s hard to know where to start.

For one thing, there was actually a “good guy with a gun” in the Pulse nightclub. His name is Adam Gruler. He’s a 15-year veteran of the Orlando Police Department. He was working security at Pulse, armed, when Omar Mateen showed up and began shooting.

According to the OPD’s own press release, Gruler “engaged in a gun battle” with Mateen before Mateen went “deeper into the club” and “the incident turned into a hostage situation.” The Orlando Sentinel’s investigation states that Gruler, quickly realizing that Mateen had him outgunned, “retreated and called for backup,” which promptly arrived in the form of nearby patrol officers Lt. Scott Smith and Sgt. Jeffrey Backhaus. Smith and Backhaus also “exchanged shots” with Mateen, who then grabbed hostages and retreated to the bathroom where he made his final, fatal stand.

Three “good guys with guns.” And 49 people still died.

So much for that idea, unless you’re saying that everyone in a crowded bar in the wee hours of the morning would be so much safer if all of them were carrying AR-15s and 9mm pistols, just so they’d have parity with terrorist nutballs like Omar Mateen.

Yeah, I can’t think of any way that combination of alcohol and semi-automatic weapons could possibly go wrong. At that point we wouldn’t even need terrorists, because we’d be stacking the bodies like cordwood.

The reports that officers Gruler, Smith and Backhaus “engaged” the gunman, without lethal result, points up another problem with the “good guy with a gun” fantasy.

The RAND corporation did a study in 2008 of the New York Police Department’s performance in gunfights. The average hit rate was 18 percent. That means trained law enforcement officers, who have to qualify on their weapons and keep up their proficiency, missed 82 percent of the time.

This isn’t a slam at law enforcement. Getting shot at tends to be, to say the least, an upsetting experience for anyone. Killing is even harder, even for trained professionals acting in self-defense. And we’re supposed to believe that amateurs will do better?

Hey, look, I write thriller fiction when I’m not doing this column or practicing law. I understand the attraction of the fantasy where Joe Everyman can rise to the occasion and take down the bad guys with the gun he just picked up. Sometimes it even happens in real life. But I’m not putting all my faith in that as a solution.

“Good guy with a gun” is a classic example of trying to shut the barn door after the horse has left, come back with a torch, and burn the barn to the ground. Why not do things like close the gun show loophole, make background checks universal, and try to keep bad guys from getting guns in the first place?

An Open Letter to Mr. Obama

 Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Dear Mr. President:

I heard recently that you plan to delay any executive action on immigration, such as delaying deportation of child refugees, until after the November elections — this in spite of your stated intention earlier to do something by the “end of the summer.”

I’m sure your advisers told you that this would be a smart political move. You may even believe it yourself. Well, they’re wrong, and so are you if you buy into that.

Oh, sure, it’s true that some of the more hotly contested races that could determine control of the Senate are in so-called “red” states. I know it looks like a bad idea to rile up the Republican “base” of xenophobes, bigots, Fox News-addicted outrage junkies, and various other angry, frightened old white dudes. My stars, taking executive action might even upset them enough to get to the polls to vote against Democrats.

But here’s the thing, Mr. President: They’re going to get riled up no matter what you do or don’t do. Riled up is their default state. They’ve been in a state of apoplectic rage since Nov. 4, 2008, when you sent the poster child for angry old white dudes and his empty-headed snowbilly running mate packing.

It only got worse four years later, when their supposed savior, Lord Mitt Romney, couldn’t get out of the way of his own feet and stumbled to a humiliating loss that everyone except them could see coming. All you have to do to upset the Republican base and get them to the polls is be a black Democrat in the White House.

You don’t believe me when I say that trying not to upset the Raging Right is a sucker’s game? Check out Newt Gingrich, who went on CNN’s “State of the Union” to call you “cowardly” and “indecisive” for delaying taking action on immigration.

Of course, no one on the program bothered to point out that on Aug. 3, Newt called such action “unconstitutional” and an example of “the Venezuelan-style, anything-I-want-is-legal presidency.”

Look at the House, where the speaker, John Boehner, urged you to act on immigration “without the need for congressional action,” the day after his caucus voted to sue you for acting without congressional action — to delay implementation of a law that they repeatedly voted to repeal.

You cannot placate these people. You cannot calm them down, especially since there’s a billion-dollar industry dedicated to keeping them angry and so afraid of everything that they’re convinced that they’ll be robbed, raped or killed if they don’t have a gun on them every time they leave the house.

Instead of trying to soothe the Republican base, why don’t you pay some attention to your own? You seem so worried at the prospect of right-wingers going to the polls that you’re forgetting the people you need to go there.

Latinos, of course, are the fastest growing demographic in the nation. You also need to get young people fired up. But what I’m hearing from them is a growing sense of frustration, complaints that “politicians are all the same,” and a general apathy about voting.

Dems will probably still get a goodly portion of the female vote, but that’s mainly because several Republicans will inevitably say something incredibly stupid, misogynistic, or patronizing toward women before it’s over. But we need the rest of the constituency, too. So now is not the time for half-measures.

I know, Mr. President, that you’re called “No Drama Obama.” But maybe it’s time for something dramatic. For starters, use the power you have as the executive to delay or defer the deportation of refugee children.

For all the caterwauling about “tyranny” (which, remember, they’re going to do anyway), that power falls squarely within the scope of what’s called “prosecutorial discretion”: the recognition that you simply don’t have unlimited resources to prosecute every law, all the time, so the executive branch can allocate those resources as it sees fit. Prosecutorial discretion has long been recognized by the courts as a legitimate use of executive power.

The Teahadists have threatened impeachment if you try that? Let ’em bring it. Lawsuits? Bring those on, too.

Iowa Rep. Steve King has raised the idea of another government shutdown in protest if you take executive action. Tell him, “Please proceed, Congressman.” Because if there’s one thing that will get wavering Democrats and independents off the couch and into the voting booths, it’ll be the spectacle of the wingnuts once again waving their torches and pitchforks and threatening to destroy the country in order to save it.

So do the right thing, Mr. President, and dare the Republicans to do something about it. Thank you, and God bless.

In Which I Just Give Up Hope

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

You know what? I give up.

It’s been a terrible week for gun violence in this country, and I don’t see any way it’s ever going to get better. So, unable to beat the firearms aficionados (so much nicer a term that “gun nuts”), I’ve decided to join them.

Check out the butcher’s bill just in the past few days:

June 5: A mentally ill gunman enters a university building at Seattle Pacific University, kills one man and wounds two others before being pepper-sprayed and subdued.

June 6: A 48-year-old man in Forsyth County, Ga., attempts to attack the county courthouse with an assault rifle and grenades, shooting a deputy in the leg before being brought down by police officers.

June 8: A husband-and-wife team of right-wing activists, shouting, “This is the start of a revolution,” shoots and kills a pair of Las Vegas police officers before entering a Walmart and killing a civilian before the female shooter kills her husband, then herself.

June 10: A man with a rifle enters a high school in Troutdale, Ore., kills one person, and wounds a teacher before apparently taking his own life.

If we’d been attacked by brown-skinned Muslims this many times in a week, the whole country would be in lockdown. A few idiots failed to blow up planes with shoes and liquid bombs a few years ago, and now you can’t carry more than three ounces of toothpaste onto a plane, and you have to take off your shoes to get through screening.

But if the killing is being committed by white people with guns, it’s all, “Well, geez, nothing we can do about it,” unless the killers were shouting “Allah akbar” as they opened fire. If the massacre of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook isn’t enough to get even expanded background checks past the U.S. Congress, there’s no hope for any kind of reasonable gun regulation.

We could always deal with the issues of mental illness that drives shooters over the edge. But I don’t see any political will to address any of those issues either, because it’s going to cost money. And we all know who counts every penny of the cost of everything but war.

So I’ve given in to despair. I accept it. You’re right. The only way to stop bad guys with guns is for all the good guys to have guns. I say “all,” because the lone “good guy with a gun” who tried to stop one of the Las Vegas cop shooters got shot in the head by the female member of the duo. Clearly, that would have been prevented if more people in the area had guns.

The only thing left to do is for everyone, and I mean everyone, to arm themselves. The good news is that given the radical expansion of Stand Your Ground laws, it’ll soon be legal to waste people who even look like they’re about to snap.

In a world where there are more and more crazy people with access to guns, a world where there are more and more mass shootings, the standard of a “reasonable belief” that your life is in danger becomes a lower and lower bar to get over. Anyone, anywhere, could be the next mass shooter, so all of us, everywhere, need to watch our butts.

Remember, though, there are also more and more people who could be a threat. The Las Vegas shooters, for example, were far-right anti-government activists. It’s now clear that those people are at least as dangerous and ready to kill Americans as radical Muslims. So people waving those “Don’t Tread On Me” flags (like the one the Las Vegas shooters draped over their victims) need to be careful they don’t make any sudden moves that could be construed as threatening.

Not all conservatives are radical killers, of course, but some of them apparently are. If we’re going to demonize all Muslims because of the action of a few crazies, it’s only fair we keep a close eye on tea partiers, Rand Paul supporters and the like.

There’ll also probably be some unfortunate incidents when open carry advocates get mistaken for mass shooters, but you know how it is. Omelets, eggs, etc.

Oh, and you lonely nerds who complain all the time about how hot girls don’t go for you nice guys? We remember what happened in Santa Barbara. So don’t even look at me narrow-eyed, young man. I mean it.

You win, gun nuts — sorry, Second Amendment Patriots. You’re strapped, I’m strapped, and here we go, over the edge. This is the Wild West world you wanted, this is the world we’ll all have to live in.

But probably not for long.

A Modest Proposal To Combat the Drone Menace at the U.S. Open

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

I confess, I was amused at first when I read in this paper that the Village of Pinehurst had banned the use of drones during the U.S. Opens.

“Really?” I thought. “Is some paranoid conspiracy theorist worried that President Obama is going to begin the final assault on our freedoms, start the imposition of Sharia law, and of course, distract everyone’s attention from Benghazi, by blowing up Phil Mickelson with a Hellfire missile?”

Hey, I’ve heard weirder theories propounded around here with a presumably straight face. You should read my email sometime. In any case, I thought, are drones such a problem that it requires the hand of the mighty Pinehurst Village Council be raised to stop them?

Well, maybe. A quick Google search using the terms “drones” and “golf course” reveals a lot of excitement about the idea of using commercially available drones to cruise over golf courses with high definition cameras, enjoying the scenery and watching the golf. Apparently, radio-controlled aircraft technology has advanced far beyond the balsa wood model Spitfire a buddy of mine spent months building, only to crash into a tree on its first flight.

“You can buy a consumer drone outfitted with four battery-powered motors and a gyro-stabilized video camera for about $1,000,” an article in Golf Digest notes, “and control it on your smartphone or tablet with a GPS-based system that was once available only to the military.”

You can imagine the problems that a swarm of the little buggers might cause as they hover and swoop over the course, buzzing like giant bees, controlled by some dude who figures he can catch the action of the Opens without leaving the house.

So, OK, the villagers have a legitimate concern. But it seems to me that while we can legislate against the newest scourge from the skies, we’re woefully unprepared to enforce such a ban, unless the Pinehurst PD has developed a previously unheard-of anti-aircraft capability.

And that’s when it hit me. We need to turn to the Open Carry movement.

In case you’re not familiar, the Open Carry movement is a group of particularly adamant firearms aficionados who believe that the defense of our Second Amendment freedoms requires them to aggressively assert their right to carry any gun, anywhere, at any time. To that end, one such group in San Antonio tends to show up in public places such as restaurants, in groups, carrying as many shootin’ irons as a platoon of Taliban insurgents.

For some inexplicable reason, the average citizen reacts with something less than joy at seeing a troop of bearded guys in camo walking into the local Chipotle armed to the teeth. Therefore, that restaurant recently joined other such chains, such as Chili’s and Sonic, in asking patrons to leave the guns at home.

“We are respectfully asking that customers not bring guns into our restaurants, unless they are authorized law enforcement personnel,” they said in a public statement.

Amazingly, the NRA joined in, in a public statement asking the Open Carry folks to cool it. The statement on the NRA’s Facebook page described the behavior of the Open Carry folks in San Antonio as not only “counterproductive” but “downright weird.”

Let me tell you, folks. The NRA telling you you’re getting a little too weird with your guns is sort of like Keith Richards coming to you and going, “’Ey, mate, y’might want to take it easier on the whiskey an’ drugs.” In response, some Open Carry advocates threatened to burn their NRA membership cards, since the organization had become soft on the Second Amendment.

It’s clear that the OC folks need some love. They need to get some of their mojo back. And we here in the Sandhills need something to counter the Drone Menace. We’ve got a need, they have more than enough guns to fill it. So I propose that the U.S. Open Committee invite the members of the San Antonio Open Carry group and other like-minded firearms advocates to the Opens.

Let them walk up and down, among the crowds, openly showing off their heaviest assault weapons, and letting the world know that the only way to stop a bad guy with a drone is a good guy with a gun.

You just know visitors who come here from all over the world will all feel that much safer knowing that the Second Amendment is being safeguarded, and any pesky drone that buzzes our way will be quickly and efficiently blasted out of the sky by a volley of high-powered ammo.

U.S. Open Carry. We need to make this happen, people. Freedom demands it.

[UPDATE: The NRA has recently backed down from its criticism of "Open Carry" and disowned its previous statement, saying "Wow, we almost made sense for a moment there. What the hell were we thinking?" Actually, what they said was that "an alert went out that referred to this type of behavior as 'weird' or somehow not normal, and that was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened." So everything's back to normal at the NRA, and by "normal" we mean "batshit crazy as usual." ]

Prince of Peace, Lord of War

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

It seems that God and guns have become inextricably intertwined in the minds of some Americans, to the point where “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” may be turning from a humorous World War II novelty tune into an actual hymn.

For example, a couple of churches have made the news recently for giving not alms to the poor, but arms to their parishioners. Grace Baptist Church in Troy, N.Y., even advertised its giveaway of a brand-new AR-15 with a quote from John 14:27: “My peace I give unto you.”

Fear not, however, that the arms may fall into the hands of the iniquitous. According to the story in The Albany Times Union, the winner would have to pass a background check before receiving his gun. One would think God’s approval shown to the winner of the drawing by having his ticket pulled would be better than a background check, but I guess they need to render unto Caesar and all that.

Meanwhile, down in Paducah, Ky., the Lone Oak First Baptist Church held a big steak dinner at which 25 guns were raffled off.

“I brought a gun with me tonight,” Pastor Chuck McAlister told the congregation. “I know that’s controversial.”

It also suggests a certain lack of trust in his flock, but whatever.

“This issue is not guns,” McAlister told Fox News Detroit’s Charlie McDuff. “The issue is men’s hearts. Men who have their hearts changed through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will handle guns responsibly.”

Men, one supposes, like Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute. According to Ruse’s bio, he has briefed a variety of government officials, including “members of the U.S. House and Senate,” as well as “White House and National Security Council staff.” He has “appeared on a number of national cable network programs discussing U.N. and Catholic issues, including news programs on CNN, CBS News, MSNBC and Fox News.” His writing career has included publication in right-leaning magazines and “on sites such as the National Review Online, Weekly Standard, Human Events, Touchstone, as well as newspapers around the world.”

So last week, Ruse went on American Family Radio and had this to say about a story of the Duke student who revealed that she’s putting herself through college by appearing as an adult-film actress:

“My daughters go to a little private religious school, and we pay an arm and a leg for it precisely to keep them away from all of this kind of nonsense. I do hope that they go to a Christian college or university and to keep them so far away from the hard left, human-hating people that run modern universities, who should all be taken out and shot.”

Got that? This good Christian, this adviser to legislators and presidents, whose organization’s mission statement says its purpose is “to defend life and family,” says that people with whom he disagrees should be “taken out and shot.”

This is a version of Christ’s love with which I am not familiar. Aren’t you guys glad that this believer is probably well-armed?

In fact, it seems like this whole idea of Jesus as the Prince of Peace is a little too wimpy for a lot of the folks at the American Family Association, owner of the above-mentioned American Family Radio.

The AFA’s executive vice president, William (Jerry) Boykin, a former lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, recently told an audience at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference in Dallas that when Jesus returns in triumph, “that sword he’ll be carrying when he comes back is an AR-15.” As the crowd laughed, he reiterated: “The sword today is an AR-15. If you don’t have one, go get one. You’re supposed to have one. It’s biblical.”

Funny, one would think the Son of the God who “thunders with his majestic voice, and … does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is heard” (Job 37:4) wouldn’t need small arms. And it’s true that Jesus did say “all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and something about “turning the other cheek,” but really, who is this biblical Jesus anyway that he can argue with a former lieutenant general who tells us that owning an assault rifle is a biblical imperative?

More and more, it looks like America’s gun aficionados are remaking God in their image, and that God of theirs sure does like guns. In a few years, will crossed rifles take their place on the altar beside the actual cross?

You might think it’ll never happen, but I never thought I’d see churches giving away guns, either.

The Closed Loop of Ignorance: A Case Study In Wingnuttery

Actual online exchange I observed today: 

Commenter #1: "Lower gun violence= no gun free zones"

Commenter #2: " I'd sure like to see proof that getting rid of gun-free zones reduces crime. Give it your best shot."

Commenter #1: "heck I'd love to be able to prove that theory of mine about gun free zones. But the liberal media and the liberals in D.C. will never let that happen."

So the fact that there is no evidence is evidence of the conspiracy to suppress the "facts" that you have no evidence for. 

Right. Got it.

Let’s examine this exchange because it illustrates so much about the wingnut “style” of argument.

First, there’s the bold assertion of so-called “facts” which are really just prejudices, half-baked notions, and/or “gut feelings” raised to the status of truth.

Then there’s the admission, when challenged, that no, there isn’t any evidence of the assertion but that that just proves the point, because  there’s a liberal conspiracy to hide the “truth”. This combines several of the central tenets of wingnuttery:

(1)    The insistence that the person speaking is part of an oppressed and eternally put upon class of people who are, despite their oppression, smarter, harder working, and more enlightened than their imagined oppressors. Ironically, the person claiming this oppression is almost always white, Christian, and heterosexual, and the majority are male—by far the least “oppressed” and best advantaged group in the United States, possibly in all of human history. 

(2)    The angry and bitter attitude that it’s hopeless that the truth will ever be known because of a vast conspiracy by the oppressors.

(3)    The rejection of any idea that they need to support their claims because the data they need to do so is forever unavailable, and

(4)    The unshakable conviction that their “facts” are, nonetheless, true, despite the lack of evidence, because their innate “common sense” (really just the above-mentioned prejudices, half-baked notions, and “gut feelings”) is more important than proof.This is the core of the anti-intellectual, chip-on-the shoulder resentment that marks a certain class of wingnut.

You have to admit that there is a certain twisted genius to this sort of "argument." It basically frees the speaker  from ever having to actually justify even the most outrageous claims, and creates a perfect protective force-field around the ignorance they cling to as if that ignorance was a gift  from God.

Unfortunately,  that’s not where ignorance comes from.

The Wannabe Wolverines

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One of my favorite movies in the so-bad-it's-awesome genre is director John Milius' 1984 right-wing paranoid fever dream "Red Dawn."

This American cinematic masterpiece tells the story of a group of teenagers who take to the hills and engage in an insurgency against an invading Soviet/Cuban force that, for some reason, begins the conquest of the United States by attacking a high school in the hinterlands of Colorado.

Naming themselves the "Wolverines" after their local sports mascot, the plucky teens (played by, among others, Patrick Swayze and a pre-insanity Charlie Sheen) disrupt and sabotage the occupation, all while maintaining their perfect '80s hair.

 It was a fun movie, largely because it was so completely absurd, sort of like Milius' other '80s masterpiece, "Conan the Barbarian."

Sadly, however, a lot of America's current gun debate seems to be driven by people who think this movie is some sort of manual for political action. We need to have high-powered military-style weapons, they assert, in case we have to take to the hills and go full Wolverine, this time against our own government.

Their poster child is James Yeager, the fellow from Tennessee who declared on YouTube that he was going to get his gun, fill his backpack with food, and "start killing people" over executive orders that no one had even read yet.

You know, I remember when even mildly criticizing the President Who Must Not Be Named in a newspaper column was enough to draw angry letters and emails accusing me of treason. It was, after all, a time of war. Now, a few years later, we're still supposed to be at war, but these Wannabe Wolverines talk openly about needing assault weapons and lots o' bullets to commit actual treason because they're mad at Barack Obama for - well, they're just mad at Barack Obama.

As we've seen from the example of Mr. Yeager above, the president doesn't really have to have done anything to excite their rage. I'm not sure what the Wannabe Wolverines think they're going to do, even with the most tricked-out AR-15, against an Army that can field attack helicopters, artillery, bombers, drones, tanks, etc.

If you really follow their "logic," then the right to bear arms would also include the right to anti-tank weapons, land mines, shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, etc. But, you know, that would be crazy.

So let's leave aside teenage-movie fantasies about taking on The Man with the AR-15 in your gun safe. Let's recall Justice Scalia's statement in the landmark D.C. v. Heller case that "the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose" and approving of the "historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons." So why not a blanket ban on assault weapons?

Well, the last time we tried to do that, it didn't work too well, largely because they tried to define "assault weapon" using the same criteria the medieval peasants in the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" used to ID a witch: "It looks like one!"

Many of the characteristics that defined a banned weapon were cosmetic: folding stocks, pistol grips, barrel shrouds and the like. Manufacturers found it childishly easy to circumvent the law by making minor changes and giving the banned weapon a new model number. They didn't address the core characteristic that made people want to ban assault weapons, then and now: the ability to mow down lots of people, very fast, without reloading.

I've said before that the problem of gun violence in this country can be summed up as "too many guns in the hands of too many crazy people." Upon reflection, I'd amend that to "too many guns able to throw too many bullets in the hands of too many crazy people."

To solve this problem, we need a solution that addresses all of those. That means better mental health services, better background checks, and - yes - some limitation on the availability of high-power, high-capacity weapons.

While polls show that a simple "assault weapons" ban sounds good to a majority of Americans, to just slap on a ban and walk away thinking the problem's solved would be as simple-minded as the fantasies of the Wannabe Wolverines. In the words of another great film, it's not our job to be as confused as they are.

All kidding and all film references aside, life is not like the movies. Complicated problems require multifaceted solutions, and we need to start considering all our options and not let the entire conversation being about one kind of weapon.