We’re leaving this storyline here because it’s not one that can be easily wrapped up with a few cloying statement. But a few observations, if I may…

I find America’s near obsession with the Second Amendment to be both infuriating and perplexing. The Constitution has had a lot of amendments added over the years, all dealing with freedom of press and freedom of speech and freedom of association… and the US tends to play loosey-goosey with most of them. Sure, you have freedom of speech — until someone proverbially shouts FIRE in a crowded theatre. And you have freedom of the press — until it escalates into printing death threats and calls to violence. Point is, no amendment is treated as absolute. They all have borders beyond which you do not cross…

… except for the Second. Talk about curbing its presumed powers, and you’re seen as a traitor to the Things That Make America Great. Suggest that some common-sense limitations be put in place, and you might as well admit that you enjoy setting babies on fire for fun. Reading some of the comments from the more strident gun activists, I sometimes get the impression that anything short of a shoulder-born surface-to-air missile launcher should be available to anyone who wants one… and maybe we can take a look at that launcher as well, eh?

Thing is, the gun activists love to talk about the fact that gun-related violence has gone down over the past few years. Yes, it has. But the intensity in which that violence is put on display on a near daily basis more than makes up for it. Every day in America, almost forty people are killed by guns… and probably over something as mind-numbing as getting dumped by your girlfriend. Or someone looked at you the wrong way. Or you were wearing the wrong kind of clothing.

I dont know what the answer is, folks. But I do know that until people start treating the Second the same way they treat all the other amendments and put some common sense limitations on its now unfettered power, America will continue to be exceptional in one way that it probably would not prefer.

OK, enough of the soap box. Back to some fun stuff tomorrow.

And as always, thank you for being such great readers.