This Is Your Brain on Guns

Second Amendment enthusiasts — as distinct from gun owners in general — are called “gun nuts” for a reason, and it’s not because they like shooting squirrels out of hickory trees.

Somewhere in this favored land some devoted NRA types are surveying the post-Parkland landscape with the calm reflection and somber dignity … oh, hell, let’s face it, they’re never that way. They see themselves as besieged, so every disagreement is another chance to engage in battle. They can’t back away, even if their foes are scores of traumatized teens who just survived an actual combat scene, because that would make them cowards.

Godwin’s Law must be unknown on the right, because an ungodly number of them went directly to comparing 17-year-olds to Hitler. Because, duh, the 17-year-olds are now running the country. Retweeting this meme already has cost a GOP aide his job. You know they’re full of shit on this one, because they don’t actually disagree with Hitler; a lot of them are all for getting rid of the Jews.

Not even veterans, because of whom we should never take a knee during the anthem, are safe if they dare speak out about battlefield weapons in civilian hands. There’s always someone whose towering patriotism leads him to call those fellow veterans “malcontents” who “treat the Constitution like a roll of Charmin Extra Soft.” Their sin? Marching with the survivors last Saturday.

Indeed, nobody is so low on society’s totem pole he can’t wrap himself in the mantle of the Second Amendment — not even the homeless ex-con who was caught defacing the memorial at Parkland High School. “I took that banner down because I am pro-gun,” Michael Kennedy, 37, allegedly told the cops.

Look, I get it. They’re paranoid people by nature (even those who are just concerned and taking common-sense precautions in an uncertain world). Of course they treat perceived threats to their security blankets rods of iron as mortal peril, and react accordingly.

They never seem to realize that their unhinged screeching about every provocation, no matter how small, demonstrate exactly why we don’t want them owning such weapons in the first place. They’re too easily triggered.