Another day, another mass uncorking...

What? He is. Wait 'till you
hear what he said. It's insane.

Hey, you know what's never been a headline ever? "Dozens dead after brutal Swiss Army knife shooting." But do you know what happens on average 1.56 times a day in the U.S.? A regular mass shooting. you know, with guns. Today is the 156th day of 2021 and there have been 249 mass shootings (a shooting in which four or more people are shot). Of those, 141 resulted in fatalities and all told, 287 people died and 1,016 were injured. 25 of those fatalities were in California. And I mentioned this because Roger Benitez is full of shit. 

Benitez, a Federal Judge appointed by George W. Bush and someone I don't think should be trusted to upvote a Reddit post much less strike down an assault rifle ban, overturned California's 1989 assault rifle ban because he just loves assault rifles. Loves them. 

This assault rifle advertisement linking masculinity to gun ownership,
(and for some reason, meat consumption) is a two-page spread of everything wrong with
 America right now. God, I'm so sick of this Tim Allen, Last Man Standing bullshit.

Pictured: An AR-15 assault ri-
wait, sorry, that's a Swiss Army knife.
I always mix those two things up.

In his ruling, he likened the AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife which, I mean, how is he a judge? Oh, right, George W. Bush was President for eight years...

"Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller...and United Staes v Miller...Yet the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR-15 type rifle."

-Judge Roger Benitez, writing 

copy for Colt apparently

Which isn't to say that people who like
assault rifles are Nazis, I'm just saying 
that Nazis didn't not invent them, so...

First of all, the State of California makes it a crime because California isn't at war which is what assault rifles were invented for in the first place. By Nazis, as it happens. Secondly, a Swiss Army knife has tons of uses. You can open canned food, or file your nails. There's a cork screw and a knife, which, I suppose you could use for home defense, but you can also cut a rope if you're out camping or something. What you can't do with it is murder a dozen people in a movie theatre or forty-nine people in a night club or stalk the halls of a high school shooting kids. 

They can really come in handy
when you need to open a bottle of
-damnit! See? I did it again.

The idea that, oh! Wait, you also can't use a Swiss Army knife to shoot up an IHOP or murder twenty seven teachers and students at an elementary school, or eleven people at a synagogue or sorry, I could go on, but I think what I'm getting at is that no, there is a massive, fundamental difference between Swiss Army knives and assault rifles. A Swiss Army knife is a tool while assault rifles are just for murdering people. Comparing the two is, at best, preposterous and I don't think I'm being unfair when I say Roger Benitez can go fuck himself. 

I don't care how many assault rifles
someone owns, no one looks badass
in khakis and a polo. No one.

And I get that people want to defend their homes. I get that the Second Amendment has been interpreted in such a way that people can have guns with which to do it, but it doesn't say that they can have all the guns. James Madison was talking about muzzle loaders, not AR-15's. They might as well be phasers to him. And I can't, for example, keep an ICBM in my back yard, so clearly we agree that there are limits. Whatever. Fine, guns. But we absolutely have a right to pass laws restricting what kind of guns people can own, and who can own them, and how many. 

That's not unreasonable. Like, it's not the 1800's and if someone breaks into your house we have 911, and police (which, whole n'other issue), and if it comes down to it, and you're that kind of person, there are regular, non-military grade guns that you can get trained on how to use properly. You don't need something that can fire a thousand rounds from a thirty-second story hotel window. This paranoid batshit right-wing fantasy of defending "heath and home" with a personal arsenal is not worth the daily body count.

"You're right, that is a lot of dead people, but if that's the price
other people have to pay for my hobby, I guess I can live with it."

-Gun hobbyists