There are many opponents of gun control who reject laws that would restrict gun ownership any further on principle or for reasons that seem practical to them. A society where law-abiding citizens can carry guns to defend themselves against criminals who have guns (or even those who don’t) seems like a sensible arrangement to them. Those people are entitled to their views, and I’m not particularly interested in arguing with them.

The people I want to argue with are those who are in favor of gun control but who reject it for practical reasons. They point out that there are at least 200 million guns in private hands in the US, and that even if we wanted to ban guns, there’s no realistic way to do so.

I would suggest that those people lengthen their time frame. What if we came up with a plan to fundamentally change America’s gun culture over the next 100 years? There are policies that we could start pursuing today that would move us in that direction, and taking those steps beats giving up in every way.

I’m actually not in favor of a blanket ban on guns. I respect hunters, and I think that target shooting and skeet can be fun. If it were up to me, though, there would be no concealed carry permits, and handguns would be completely unavailable. The idea of owning a gun for self-defense would seem completely perverse to people.

There are a lot of ideas out there for making guns more difficult to purchase, making ammunition more expensive, and taking existing guns out of circulation. If changing America’s gun culture is important, it’s worth thinking about how to do it, even if it takes 100 years. Believe me, that’s how the gun advocates think.

There’s a lot to be said about school shootings. Jason Kottke said most of it today. One thing I want to add, though, is that pro-gun political groups not only fight for gun laws, they also do everything they can to prevent public health researchers from investigating the effects of gun ownership on society. The New York Times ran a story on this last year. When the I went back to look for that story recently, I noticed that the Times ran almost the same story back in 1995. People are entitled to their own philosophical views on the pros and cons of the firearms laws in this country, but it’s telling that pro-gun organizations work so hard to keep people from gathering data to use in the debate.

Christy Wampole’s How to Live Without Irony is one of my favorite essays I’ve read lately. Here’s her advice on performing an irony self-assessment:

Here is a start: Look around your living space. Do you surround yourself with things you really like or things you like only because they are absurd? Listen to your own speech. Ask yourself: Do I communicate primarily through inside jokes and pop culture references? What percentage of my speech is meaningful? How much hyperbolic language do I use? Do I feign indifference? Look at your clothes. What parts of your wardrobe could be described as costume-like, derivative or reminiscent of some specific style archetype (the secretary, the hobo, the flapper, yourself as a child)? In other words, do your clothes refer to something else or only to themselves? Do you attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or ugly? In other words, is your style an anti-style? The most important question: How would it feel to change yourself quietly, offline, without public display, from within?

I have been intending for quite awhile to write something about the dangers of irony. Perhaps at one time “hipster mustaches” were an ironic commentary on absurd facial hair, but now they’re a faddish fashion choice. Likewise, perhaps people started drinking PBR because they were making an ironic commentary on being “broke,” but now they drink it because it’s the cheapest beer most bars serve. How many people wearing trucker hats know why they’re called trucker hats?

I’ve observed the effects of overuse of irony on myself. I often catch myself unconsciously using slang that I once used to ironically skew people I see on TV. The line between irony and sincerity blurs as people repeat behavior that they began as a joke. The journey from making a joke and becoming a joke is a short one. Just ask anyone with an ironic tattoo.