What better way to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Day than with a BIG celebration of firearms!? Using the typical tact and in-your-face (with a blast of mace) attitude, the gun nuts have decided to make January 19 the First National Gun Appreciation Day. The date -- ironically -- coincides with the weekend we remember the heinous assassination by gun shot of peace activist and Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr, and also is painfully close to the anniversary of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
But perhaps it is a coincidence. You have to admit, it's virtually impossible in this ultra-violent society to find a date on the calendar that doesn't mark some bloody gun-related massacre or murder. So maybe the date isn't the massive insult it seems on paper. It does fall almost a month to the day following the unspeakable tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary. It's safe to assume the traumatized citizens of Newtown, CT, aren't going to be holding any pro-gun parades on the 19th, or festooning their homes with ammo belts.
Make no mistake, these callous firearm freaks are serious about this new "holiday." They have a website and everything.
"On 01.19.13 go to your local gun store, gun range, or gun show with your Constitution, American flags, and 'hands off my guns' sign to send a loud and clear message to Congress and President Obama" the banner on their website suggests, below a photo of an attractive blonde woman, smiling as she aims her pretty, shiny weapon. So sassy!
Bring your own personal copy of the US Constitution (!) to a gun store? Uhm, for what, exactly? How does Congress and/or Obama get that particular message? Is the gun store gonna call John Boehner and tell him you're there? Snap your photo and post it to the White House Facebook page? That'll show 'em!
Brilliant plan.
This is not "2nd Amendment" Day -- make no mistake -- this is about guns. Long, shiny, powerful, sleek, sexy, dangerous, glamorous guns. Semi-automatics, military-style assault rifles, and multi-round magazines tucked snugly into weapons of mass destruction. Ahhh ... we do love our wonderful weapons ... and how they make everything dead and stuff.
Gun Appreciation Day is the masterpiece crafted by the combined brainpower of a broad cluster of paranoid right-wing kooks and lunatics including the Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Special Operations Speaks, Revolution PAC, Citizens and Country, Social Security Institute, Committee to Draft Judge Andrew Napolitano, Conservative Action Alerts, Conbustible [love that one], Women Warriors PAC, Conservative Action Fund, and Political Media, Inc.
The website states it expects more groups to join in the coming days. Of course. This list is a drop in the batty-bucket of bullet-happy fringe groups that won't be satisfied until every schoolteacher, house painter, clergyman, postal delivery person, lifeguard, ice cream truck driver, newspaper boy, street sweeper, brick mason, flower delivery person, manicurist, bartender, pizza boy, tree-trimmer, construction worker, theater ticket taker, busboy, hotel clerk, window glazier and taxi driver are federally mandated to be armed to the teeth.
After all, a "bad guy" can commit a crime anywhere, the only solution is to arm the entire national citizenry to stop this crazed criminal! Why, we wouldn't even need the police anymore as every private citizen could just shoot at will!
Think how much simpler life would be. How much safer! To stop gun violence, all we need is ... more guns! Duh ...! We've been "morans" all this time! What a simple solution.
The kook website continues:
"'The Obama administration has shown that it is more than willing to trample the Constitution to impose its dictates upon the American people,' said Gun Appreciation Day chairman Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc. 'If the American people don't fight back now, Obama will do the Second Amendment what he has already done to the First with Obamacare -- gut it without a moment's thought to our basic constitutional rights. We have never had a president who so callously disregards the Constitution, Congress, the courts, and the will of the American people. And that's why this outpouring of public support is so important for our constitutional safeguards to keep and bear arms. If, as this president claims, the American people are at risk from murderous rampagers, the logical solution is to arm, not present a docile target.'"
Rampagers? Honestly, President Obama has been accused of being an illegal alien, a non-citizen, a granny-killer, and a Socialist out to overthrow the country, but now he's assisting murderous rampagers? (Are they referring to drone strikes? Targeted assassinations ...? Um ... don't think so.)
So tell me, when will Hallmark come out with the line of greeting cards for National Gun Appreciation Day? Maybe one of those musical cards that opens to a little pop-up 3-D Glock 9 and plays "Saturday Night Special?" How about a TV ad for the new holiday: "This year, give her the gift she'll never forget, a loaded .22 and a box of hollow-tips that says you're 'dying' for her love?"
These people get funnier with every 10 point IQ drop.