The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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I thought by now this gun control issue would’ve settled down.  But judging by the debates down at the Diner over breakfast, I’d say it’s only gotten worse.  The arguments are so heated, Big Larry doesn’t bother turning on the gas for the grill in order to fry our bacon and eggs.  And even so, they taste burnt to me.  Jenny, the owner, posted a sign LEAVE YOUR GUN TALK OUTSIDE.  ORDER OF THE SHERIFF.  Sort of meant to be humorous, but not totally.

Walter, the first morning of Sheriff Jenny’s edict, shouted, “Now what?  They’re taking away our first AND second amendment rights??!!”  And so the café was filled with the porcelain decibels of pounding coffee cups, pointed forks and knives, veiled threats and hurled insults.  The biscuits and gravy crowd squared off against the oatmeal and wheat toast faction, but both sides had higher blood pressure by the time they paid their bill.  Poor Anita, the referee and waitress most mornings, got about half her usual tips.  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” she would say to every guest.  “I’m not taking sides — I’m just an innocent bystander!”

Walter wore his NRA cap every day and threatened to bring his weapons to breakfast, as was his right and even his civic duty, according to the Constitution according to the gun lobby, according to Walter.  Big Larry made it absolutely clear that wasn’t going to happen on his watch, not on HIS grill.  Happily, Walter, despite overwhelming firepower against Larry’s spatula and scraper, decided to leave his arsenal at home.

Last breakfast Walter was ranting about the government doctors asking patients if they owned a gun, if they ever felt depressed, if they ever had violent thoughts.  Hank, our local attorney, looked over his coagulating oatmeal and said, “All they’re trying to do is intervene in a potential suicide before some depressed slob shoots himself.  Which,” he added, “is a helluva lot of people.”  Walter posited that no, it was just an excuse to make a list of gun owners so they could take our weapons away.

“Well, said Hank, “ if you’re so all-fired worried, why are you telling all of US you got guns?”  That, it goes without saying, sent Walter off on a caffeinated rage.  I didn’t really help by adding that personally I was all FOR suicide by gun and all those poor Rambos with paranoia might consider similar relief.  Needless to say, Walter and I aren’t on speaking terms, but I don’t consider it an abrogation of our first amendment rights.  You’re just as free NOT to speak and maybe a lot of us ought to exercise that a little more often.

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Well, when you corner a feral animal, you need to expect it will show some fangs when you close in on it. The new NRA president, Ollie North, the pardoned criminal of the Iran/Contra scandal, came out swinging when the public outcry pointed accusatory fingers at the hallowed National Rifle Association. Not us, he bellowed, not guns! Ritalin, that’s the culprit. A society that’s drugged its kids and made killers of them.

Ollie’s not alone feeling cornered, snarling at the suggestion their guns will be confiscated by an enraged elitist mob of liberals. Bad school design, some are shouting back. Unarmed teachers in the classrooms! Violent video games and a culture of violence and mayhem! Poor school architecture! Trench coats! Too many doors, too many windows! The answer for most of these cringing curs is more guns. Always more guns. If we only had more, we could stop the bad guys.

Okay, boys, here’s the bad news. We do have more guns. More than any other so-called civilized country in the world, probably more than most of them added together. And in case you haven’t noticed, it doesn’t really seem to quell the violence. The argument that video games are causative, sounds good until you figure kids watch these all over the globe, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, and they don’t seem to run out and shoot up a school every other week. Unarmed teachers? Give me a break. No sane person outside of Texas wants to holster up their elementary school teachers. School architecture? Build concrete and steel schools the way we built Iraq Green Zones blast zones. C’mon, why not just put tractor trailers underground, lock the kids in until 3 PM. Ban trench coats? Wow, why not? Maybe ban long pants and winter jackets too while we’re stripping the children down to their bras and BVD’s.

And Ritalin? Maybe Ollie is on to something here. All those hyperactive Attention Deficit kids mellowed out on Ritalin most of their lives, that must be the answer. Earth to Doctor North, Earth to Doctor North, please come back down here. We promise to take the kids off Ritalin if you’ll do one thing for us. Tell us how a yahoo who waged a secret war in Central America with money from arms sales to Iran has any right whatsoever to lecture us about a culture of violence. Talk about prying a gun out of your cold dead head…. Maybe an IQ test should be required to buy a weapon.

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Gun Gospel

It’s been a few weeks since the Parkland killings down in Florida and Big Walter seems to think he’s Designated Spokesman for the NRA, judging by his non-stop harangues from the Diner to the Pilot Lounge. Last time I was fortunate enough for a reprise, he was on a soapbox in the big box grocery’s cafeteria off island presumably to spread his gun gospel to the gunless and misinformed citizens of Stanwood and Gomorrah.

“They could ban assault rifles all day long and not one life would be saved!” he fumed with a styrofoam cup of coffee waved to make a point. “Same with background checks. Any nutcase can buy a gun if he wants one. A psychiatric test, ha! He’ll just go buy one illegally on the street. Not gonna stop him! The only thing that’ll stop him is more guns … in the hands of the good guys!” Walter slammed his cup on the formica table and splattered coffee on the newspaper his victims had set down to listen all the better. Big mistake, but then, Walt was new to them.

Out here in the hinterlands the NRA P.R. machine is running full tilt. I guess if banning AR-15’s won’t prevent some other massacre, well, why bother at all? If some guy flunks the psycho test and buys a gun from a buddy, then what’s the use trying to stop him? The NRA sure doesn’t see the point when the correct answer is to arm everyone from daycare teachers to Walmart greeters. Next would-be massacre might look like the O.K. Corral, collateral damage sure, but the next psycho-killer would think twice, wouldn’t he? And if everyone’s blasting away, the cops are going to have a hard time sorting out the good guys from the bad guys, but that’s the price you pay for the god given right to bear arms, Walter would argue.

Meanwhile he’s explaining how he himself is ‘packing’ now. The lady at the table next door who’s evidently been listening suddenly picks up her tray of half eaten food and moves to the far end of the cafeteria, maybe figuring stray bullets would be considerably less likely. Me, I headed for the exit. Before I wanted to get a conceal carry myself. For Walter.

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You maybe remember Oliver North, the poster boy for the Iran/Contra affair, that black spot on American History where Reagan and his team played a little fast and loose with the law to secretly fund a war in Nicaragua with money from Iranian arms sales. Some might say this should have gotten Ronnie impeached, but in the malaise of Nixon’s exit, another presidential ousting was more than Congress could stomach. Ollie, some say, took the fall instead. Me, I think the belligerent little soldier of fortune deserved all the jail time we could give him.

So it was little surprise Fox News gave our traitor a hero’s welcome. They’d give Benedict Arnold an anchor spot if they saw George Washington as the status quo. And now the National Rifle Association just announced Ollie will be their new President, replacing, well … nobody we’d remember since Charleston Heston memorably played the role. Hard to beat Moses. But Oliver North isn’t a bad choice. You know, if you want a hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners, cold hearted sonofabitch for your spokesman. And apparently the NRA does.

I mean, you got these snot nosed high school kids tugging at your bump stocks, smarmy smart asses who wouldn’t know an AR-15 from an AK-47, who think a Glock is a pharmaceutical stock their parents have in their portfolio … punk kids who want to embarrass their legislators for taking money from the NRA, protectors of the second amendment, and whose aim is to ban all shooting irons in the Yew Ess of Aye. You need a killer for president. You need a paid assassin. You need, yep, you need Ollie. Apparently Stephen Seagal and Dick Cheney are busy. Personally, Dick would have been the better choice. He was willing to shoot his own duck hunting partner. You have to RESPECT a man who blasts his friends, a man would willingly lay waste to those high school kids, no twinge of conscience for him. Have gun, will travel.

The NRA apparently feels under siege. Thousands of high school girls and boys, placards held defiantly high, picketing and getting out the future vote. That’s more firepower than La Pierre and his paranoid thugs were prepared to confront. They needed a stronger offense, if you can imagine that. They needed an Oliver North. Probably to sell arms to the Iranian mullahs for cash to power up a P.R. blitz. All I can add is that Fox News’ loss is probably nobody’s gain. Go get em, Ollie!

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You got to love the NRA. In the wake of another mass killing they roll right into the Conservative Political Action Conference, which they sponsor oddly enough, and accuse the folks who want to maybe do something about mass killings of exploiting the tragedy. Now, I love blaming the victims as much as the next whacko, but this time it feels a little like they are protesting, methinks, too much. When the kids who survived the shootings last week began to knock on legislator’s doors and organized rallies, the conspiracy theorists hit their Facebook sites with accusations that they were paid actors. Nothing is really too insane or too low for these folks. Pretty nearly all the lawmakers were in conferences and unavailable for meetings. Welcome to Democracy, kids!

Wayne (Give me a Gun or Give me Death) La Pierre, the front of the barrel of the National Rifle Association, accuses Democrats of a liberal agenda to destroy all our rights. Ban a bumpstock to make a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun, well, that’s an equivalency of the government busting in private citizen’s doors for speaking their minds. They want to terminate with extreme prejudice their God given right to carry a firearm, their 2nd amendment rights and then it’s just a nano second away from all the Bill of Rights being taken too. The answer, says Wayne, is to arm the schools’ teachers, teach them how to use a Colt .45 Peacekeeper, give them concealed weapon permits and let them gun down any would-be bad hombres. Works in the movies!

A legislator in our area, not saying he gets money from the NRA lobby, fumed yesterday that more mass killings are done with knives than guns. He used a fictional account of a Norwegian slaughter of schoolkids by blade. Why not be more creative? Grenade murders or slaughter with swords. Murder by pesticides. Killings with trained rats. C’mon, man, if you’re going to lie outright, why not make it a doozie? And yeah, we elected this idiot.

The kids are asking the question we all should’ve been asking all along. How much is the NRA PAYING you??!! What amount of money did it take to buy you off? What are you going to do to make our school and this country safer? Or as one kid vowed, ‘I can’t vote right now, but when I can, I’m voting YOU out!’

Kid, I’m with you.

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