Regulate Ammo Like Drink Containers

When I was a kid growing up in NYC, I remember condoms and turds floating in the East River and Long Island Sound, but still there was local opposition to the construction of sewage plants that slowly cleaned the waterways as the infrastructure was built out. 

This was more than a decade before the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Ohio. Governments on the east coast had been dumping human waste in the Atlantic since the early 1930s, and that shit and sludge began arriving on the beaches to celebrate the bicentennial.

For some, it may be difficult to imagine that only 60 years ago, many Americans lived in an environment that amounted to an open-sewer in even large American cities. In fact, in the red state rural areas today some proud deplorables still have indoor outhouses that pipe their shit and piss into open cess ponds out back. Kentucky, I’m looking at you.

At the same time, I remember also carrying my mother’s Pepsi bottles across the street to Bloise’s to redeem the deposit, which back then was less than a nickel. I’ve lived in several states since, some of them much more environmentally toxic than others, but invariably, the least toxic and best places to live had some form of bottle bill to help clean up the consequence of living in a superstitious consumer society built on fast food and ephemeral services..

Gun violence was already a thing in the 40s. I wasn’t even in kindergarten yet when Howard Unruh took a Luger and killed 13 and wounded four in Camden, New Jersey. It could have been worse. He ran out of ammo and was arrested at his home, telling the cops that he would have killed thousands if he had enough ammo.

When Charles Whitman took to the tower in Texas, I was at Clemson, preparing to drop out and get drafted.

This was all before the NRA became a latter day founding father of this nation of miserable fucks.

I don’t like weapons. I write things, but unlike Henri Michaux, who in "I am Writing to You From a Far Off Country" wrote: “I do not say this in order to wound. I could say other things if i really wanted to wound,” I am not averse to inflicting pain on those incapable of joy or reason.

I have no commonly held opinions. I’m a cynic, like Diogenes, the man who originally told Alexander the Great that the problem with common sense is it is so damned common. Idiots have common sense. Idiots are deplorable. Idiots elected Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, two George Bushes, and Donald Trump. Idiots are counter-indicative to a functioning democracy, which is a concept based on uncommon sense.

To put it another way: There is no common sense; it is commonly accepted nonsense.

Which is why I propose that the way to curb gun violence in this nation of miserable fucks is to employ an uncommonly sensible approach, combining a minimalist reading of the Second Amendment with the successes of bottle bills and other taxes and fees that have traditionally been used to deter bad behavior among citizens or encourage acts for the common good.

Here are the exact words of the Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” There is no mention of a right to own and bear ammunition.

Bottle bills exist in 10 states today. They provide income to the poor and homeless who become environmental stewards simply trying to stay alive by cashing in containers that rich fucks just toss out the window as they drive back and forth between their meaningless jobs and their meaningless lives. Bottle bills help reduce waste in landfills as well as removing litter on our streets and in our parks and wild areas. 

Cigarette and alcohol taxes are designed not only to raise revenue but to reduce unhealthy behaviors that are a drain on society because everyone contributes to a healthcare infrastructure that those with self-inflicted disorders put an unfair burden upon. I’ve been a smoker, an addict, and an alcoholic, and when I was most thoroughly immersed in those addictions I was most apt to be unproductive and a drain on friends, family, and society. Not that I gave a fuck. And not that I really give a fuck now.

I contend that gun violence in America is an addictive behavior exhibited by ammosexuals who really enjoy putting holes in things, blowing shit up, and killing living things — including humans — because that’s how they get high. You can’t reason with an addict. An addict will either die or kick the addiction, and most addicts don’t intentionally kill themselves, so making their lives miserable is the only proven method I’ve seen to bring about a change. It worked for me. The power of anecdotalism is strong.

Another thing about modern America is how batshit crazy it is for market-driven solutions that are really designed by those with money and power to maintain and grow their money and power. I bet there are still idiots waiting for Ronald Reagan’s prosperity to trickle down to them. Oh wait, those are the deplorables, aren’t they? You know, those poor put-upon white folks who felt so deprived they voted straight Nazi in 2016.

I propose a solution to gun violence that uses proven strategies like bottle bills and supply-side economic theory to make it too fucking expensive for murderous assholes to poke holes in people, places, and things with this simple three pronged approach.

• Establish a nationwide minimum per unit price for each round of ammo by caliber with a 22 bullet going for $10 a pop. Pun intended. A 30 caliber round should go for $30-40. You should pay a minimum of $20 for a shotgun shell. Details can be worked out in conference between Demoblicans and Repugnicunts.
• Enact a nationwide surcharge, also tied to individual rounds, ranging from $10-50 depending on the kinds of injuries and slaughter observed during the previous five years in non-combat situations. This surcharge would be placed in a trust fund, similar to the Social Security, to be used for rehabilitation of gun violence survivors and to help the families of all those rotting bodies.
• Require a $10 per round deposit across the board, regardless of ammo type, that can be redeemed by whoever brings a spent casing to a retail outlet that sells the piercing joy juice that ammosexuals crave. In addition to making firing off a burst even more prohibitively expensive, it can become a source of income for kids, the homeless, and others willing to clean up the carnage on our streets and the debris left in our national parks.

There it is in a nutshell, an uncommonly sensible suggestion from this cognitive dissident to our modern world of potential targets. Feel free to tweak it.

Makes more sense than putting everyone in body armor.