Depreciation in Appreciation – Gun Appreciation Day

Which is larger, the caliber or the IQ?

The Most Imbecilic Idea for a Celebratory Commemoration to Ever Arise from the Rapidly Regressing Grey Matter of the Far Right

How to Insult and Hurt the Victims and the Families of American Gun Violence

A Completely Non-Partisan and Utterly Objective Commentary

“To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary” – Abraham Lincoln

“What a wonder is a gun!
What a versatile invention!
First of all, when you've a gun
Everybody pays attention.

And all you have to do
Is move you little finger,
Move your little finger and
You can change the world.” – Stephen Sondheim

“I’ll be a son of a gun” – Joey Bishop

A coalition of conservative organizations (time travelers from a long-ago epoch, modern-day scientists estimate their era of origin to fall somewhere between the 15^th and 17^th centuries) have declared Saturday, June 19, 2013 to be the premiere - and should intelligence, logic, compassion, concern, sense and sensibility, or even Pride and Prejudice hold sway - the final, "Gun Appreciation Day.” Those behind this firearm-folly felt it of utmost importance to organize rapidly in relation to the tragic and horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut, so as to inflict as much pain, suffering and sorrow upon that day’s survivors and victim family members. In arms-owning solidarity and with the sincere belief that it is the God-given and Constitutional right (the Bible and the Constitution being, of course, interchangeable texts, particularly to those who have neither read nor understood either) for Caucasian, Christian, Conservative males (real Americans) to possess limitless weaponry, armaments and ammunition allowing the ability to commit as many Columbines, Auroras and Newtowns that they and they alone (with noteworthy contributions from the great minds of the Right such as Limbaugh, Palin, Bachmann, Goehmert, Joe the Plumber, Larry the Cable Guy and the cast of Honey Boo Boo) deem necessary to preserve their freedoms and liberties from the America-hating, anti-Christ, Kenyan-born, Muslim, Atheist, Socialist, Communist, Nazi presently in illegal residence in the people’s White House and his second term agenda to destroy our Republic, institute Sharia Law, kill our Grandmothers, take our guns, program television and movies solely with product from the Tyler Perry canon, legalize only gay marriage, make abortions and marijuana mandatory, disband the military, incinerate the original copy of the Constitution in a primetime Christmas Day special on BET, replace all statues, busts and prehistoric cave paintings with images of himself,  have all Bibles reprinted so that the name Barack Hussein Obama replaces that of Jesus Christ and, needless to say, declare himself Emperor and Deity for eternity.  On January 19^th, an army of the indignant, insensitive and ignorant are to sally forth from gun show to gun range to gun store, cash and credit card firmly in fist, with a message of violence and bloodshed for all, that Conservative perception of what is the true manifestation of American greatness and sustainability, and to share the joyful message of pistols before people, Berettas before boys, Glocks before girls and Lugers before life.

Famous American Idiot and current Hades inhabitant who held an NRA rally in  Denver only 11 days after Columbine - believed he needed guns as protection from "damn, dirty apes!"

Does a day set aside in celebration of mankind's most popular and most prolific apparatus of death and destruction seem something an enlightened, considerate or contemplative culture condones? It has been just slightly over a month since the sickening scene at Sandy Hook and in that short period of time there have been over 1000 additional gun deaths in the United States. Guns may be a necessary evil but they are not an item of appreciation or celebration, rather a presence and need we must sadly tolerate. Other instruments of injury and fatality, so often elicited in debate - the car, the knife, the baseball bat, the crowbar – exist for other primary purposes, any resulting casualty occurs through accident or malicious misuse.  The gun has but one purpose, it exists to do one thing, it is manufactured and sold and marketed for one reason – to kill – not really cause for a national day of praise, worship and rejoice. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Never has a more simpleminded phrase ever been muttered, and perhaps, never has one so effectively reached and harmed so many.  People with guns kill people. In a very unusual confluence of occurrences, on December 14, 2012, the very day of the Sandy Hook shootings, a deranged, knife-wielding madman went on a violent rampage in China attacking 22 children, fortunately all survived.  The weapon comparison and tally – the knife results in not a single death, the semi-automatic Bushmaster .223 rifle regrettably results in 26. Guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people, and people with automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons kill large numbers of people proficiently and speedily.  Has it ever before been tradition to fete tools of torture and terror? Does one recall the childhood respite from the classroom when we praised and partied in humble honor of the guillotine, the mace, the lethal injection, or that classic bit of festiveness and frivolity – “Drawn and Quartered Appreciation Day?” 

Happy Mace Day! God Bless Us Everyone.

 Don’t fret over your freedoms, lose it over your liberties or even sulk over your self-determination or sovereignties, no one in this country is trying to overturn the second amendment and take your guns – not even the guy in 1600 who’s foreign name and atypical hue (to you) so disturbs your digestion and disrupts your domesticity; keep those single-shot muskets every day that you’re an active member of a regulated militia, just as the Founding Fathers intended. But remember that such responsibility requires reasonability and restraint, for  even when employed for the most noblest of reasons  - to defend, to save a life, to free a people, the ensuing consequence may be necessary, but never anything to desire or celebrate -  or even appreciate. Perhaps the true appreciation that grateful American citizens should feel, regarding our nation’s unnatural and irrational religious fervor toward firearms, is that we currently are blessed with a President and Vice President with the courage, understanding and compassion to see children’s lives, and a nation’s and generation’s health and future as being of greater importance than the generous financial felicity of the NRA, gun lobby and related special interest groups.

In musical conclusion, a combination almost as ill-conceived and perilous as the pairing of Wayne LaPierre and the gun manufacturers, Frank Sinatra performs the Sonny Bono composition, “Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" -