Every mass shooting in America reignites the gun control debate, but even the noble efforts of the Parkland students have yet to produce the moderate gun control measures that the vast majority of Americans want.
Whether this deadlock is because guns have been a beloved and iconic fixture in American culture for decades, or simply because the NRA has Congress by the balls, is anyone’s guess. However, this remains certain: The United States has failed miserably in its gun control efforts, and it seems futile to hope that anything will ever change in the current political and cultural environment.
Thus, we obviously need to develop a new method of “gun control,” a novel approach that is consistent with America’s fetishistic love of guns, yet is also safer.
The proposal is this: Forget trying to limit our gun rights. Instead, expand the rights of the guns themselves, granting them the legal status of human beings. Not gun rights — guns’ rights!
This is perfectly reasonable since we have already established that corporations are people, and especially since our years of collective inaction have, by implication, shown that we value guns more than actual human life.
Of course, guns being human beings would produce many new legal issues, but this actually simplifies the gun debate. For example, the entire argument over the ethics of buying, selling and owning firearms could easily be resolved if guns are people, as any transactions of guns whatsoever would technically be human trafficking.
While this could disappoint gun owners, they must remember that this is not gun control. This is an effort to empower guns by affording them greater dignity and respect. If one really does love their guns, they will realize that letting them go is best for their guns. We need to have strong, independent firearms.
However, if we rule that gun transactions are indeed legitimate, then America’s gun lovers will need to legally prove that they are in consensual relationships with their guns. Since proud gun nuts frequently hunt, hit the shooting range and shamelessly stroll through public places armed to the teeth, they would need to prove that the guns are not being exploited, harassed or coerced against their will just for the pleasure of those who grasp, wield, stroke and fire them.
Additionally, many gun lovers drool over gun enthusiast magazines with sinful desire. Elevating guns to humans would certainly require us to reclassify these magazines as pornographic. This could help to reduce the objectification of guns and restrict child access to sexually explicit “gun material” via toy guns, gun video games and The Expendables movies.
This “new philosophy of guns” could utterly transform our understanding of guns and revolutionize gun rhetoric. Perhaps most significantly, it provides an airtight counter argument that soundly defeats the frequent talking-point, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This reasoning is now invalid because, if guns are people and people kill people, then guns do in fact kill people. Checkmate.
Written by: Benjamin Porter — bbporter@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
