Guh wha?

From an OpEdNews email I just received:

"We don't know whether the alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, did what he did, but it is not unreasonable to be concerned that hate mongers like Palin and Beck played a roll."

I think I'd go out on a limb and say that he did what he did. Whatever that may have been.

I assume they mean "why" he did what he did. Or whether he did what "it's alleged" he did. Something like that. Because if he didn't do what he did, then the question is who did do what he did, and did they in turn do what they did, or did he do what they did, and if he didn't, did he do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do...

Sorry. I've been being serious for a very long time. It takes a toll, I tell you.

Today I unblocked the kitchen drain, vacuumed the ground floor and sorted out the utility room, and eight tiles fell off the kitchen wall. Ah, sweet domesticity.

All right, how about this?

Those who don't believe in gun control are saying that the man who shot those people in America would have got a gun anyway, or else made a bomb out of common household chemicals following instructions helpfully provided on the internet for freedom-loving nutjobs everywhere. And that's probably true.

So how about this? There are companies who make a fortune out of manufacturing and supplying guns for private ownership and use. Why not take away a proportion of their profits--ninety-nine per cent seems like a nice round figure--and ring-fence it for public mental health care. Any company that objects gets closed down for non-compliance.

"But...but...that would be...*gasp* socialism!" YES. Deal with it. Sometimes you need to do something with problems other than shaking your head sadly and murmuring about how terrible they are. You want the guns? Fine. You can have the guns. But this way you can make some provision for looking after the madmen you insist are the only source of all this trouble, and making sure they can't get hold of them.

Nothing's going to eradicate the problem? Okay, if you say so. I've lived fifty years in this country, gone through the entire gamut of human emotion open to a straight bloke of the male persuasion, never felt the need of a gun to articulate my displeasure or to defend myself against anyone else's, and wouldn't know where to start to get hold of one if I did, but we have had our share of lunatics with projectile weapons (Hungerford, Omagh, the other place whose name escapes me at the moment), so obviously our system isn't perfect. But even if it's only slightly better, even if only one or two lives have been saved because we have more gun control than other places, in gods' name isn't that worth something?

Take the profit out of making guns, and fewer guns will be made, and/or more money will be available to keep the desperate madmen under some sort of control. I don't see a downside.

Odd thought

Profit (to an individual or a small corporation): money you need, i.e. to feed yourself and family after you've paid your bills.

Profit (to a large corporation): money you don't need, i.e. what's left to give your shareholders and finance your directors' jollies after you've paid your expenses.

Clearly some corporations are very small and in these cases there's some overlap. Equally clearly, there's a cut-off point beyond which profit becomes more than anyone could need. Also, corporations don't eat.