Odious

As fate would have it, there was a Gun Show was at the Reno Convention Center the weekend after the October 1 massacre in Roseburg. Awkward!

In fact, I saw the TV commercial for this latest Crossroads Gun Show about six hours after the shootings. I was surfing through news shows, looking for any new information about the slaughter, racing through the commercial breaks with the aid of my DVR, and I saw the logo for the gun event, and I just had to stop and rewind and go back and watch. Just to absorb the squirmy weirdness of it all, I suppose.

As I watched the TV spot I simply couldn't resist snatching at all the low-hanging fruit in my mind. That is, I couldn't help but wonder how many Asperger's patients would be combing the aisles of this event? How many schizophrenics? How many psychotic sociopaths, looking to build up a stash of lead-dispensing goodies that will one day guarantee them the attention that they, for whatever reason, seem to desperately crave. How many twisted misfits, whose mommas didn't bring 'em up right cuz those mommas were always gone, will be cruising among the gun dealers (and come to think of it, how many of those guys are twisted deranged kooks?), chatting cooly and casually about various hand cannons and semi-automatic human wasters, all of which could be purchased at the Gun Show as if they were no more dangerous than chocolate bars or hand-crafted birdhouses. Background checks? Waiting periods? Shit. That stuff is for weenie liberal namby pamby communists. We're free to wheel and deal here, brother, and the only requirement for purchase is that your money is the right shade of green.

At least 85 percent of the American people want to be thrown what will very likely be a tiny, token bone. But goddammit, we want it. We want the bone of background checks. Nationwide background checks that include gun shows. That's it. That's all we want. Will it solve our insanity? Of course not. Will it maybe stop one morose, sullen loner from getting his hands on a bunch of guns? Maybe. Just maybe. And goddammit, isn't that worth it?

Yet, our Congress refuses to give us this small, token bone. Why? Because our Congress is basically bought and owned by the National Rifle Association. This makes me very sad. To think that the great and powerful Congress of the United States of America is now controlled by the bizarre paranoid ironheads that run the NRA. Think about this for a minute.

Our northern Nevada representatives in Washington will never vote against the NRA, no matter how many limp, impotent, imploring letters you write. I'm talking about Sen. Dean Heller and Rep. Mark Amodei. Both have grades of “A” from the NRA. Obviously, a grade of “A” from the NRA is considered a positive in some political circles. For me, it's an extremely effective, if odious, voting repellent.