There is an article in the New York Times this morning about the recent spate of state legislation proposing an easing in gun laws. The theory seems to be that since we know the bad guys have guns, shouldn’t we make sure the good guys have them too?

Except this approach will only work if the bad guys don’t know which good guys have guns, so we have to make sure the good guys can carry concealed weapons. And since the B.G. are everywhere, we better make it legal for the G.G. to carry the aforementioned concealed weapons in bars, restaurants, courtrooms and schools - cause you never know when you might need to take out some B.G. Some states have bills pushing for lowering the age a G.G. can carry a gun.

One of the arguments behind all of this is that the states just “don’t have the money to provide security” in places like courthouses and schools. It strikes me as pretty convenient for Republicans that President Bush’s budget cuts federal aid to state budgets, forcing the states to be creative with their own budgets, which Republican lawmakers can then use as the excuse for why my mother should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon when she goes to the grocery store.

Isn’t there a good reason we moved away from the gun-toting, shoot ‘em up times of the wild west? And since none of the proposed legislation seems to require any training for anyone carrying a gun, doesn’t that mean we will have to worry about not only dodging the bullets from the B.G. but from the G.G. as well? I mean, if we are going to be honest here, regardless of what they want you to believe, guns really do kill people. People can have the best intentions, but shit happens, and in the end that gun has one purpose and one purpose only - to kill.

So, to recap, the current trend seems to be: let everyone carry guns, hide them so you don’t know who has them, make especially sure they can carry them in places where large groups of people congregate, and let the shootin’ begin.