As we all know by now, last week the U.S. Senate, in spectacular, lily-livered fashion, caved to the NRA, voting down even the weakest, most watered down version of a gun control bill. After the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, which so many people claimed “changed everything”, nothing, in fact, has changed at all. Forget an assault weapons ban, forget bans on high capacity magazines; we can’t even ask gun buyers to submit to a simple background check at a gun show. And, since, according to Mother Jones, “around 40% of all legal gun sales involve private sellers and don’t require background checks” that’s a lot of buyers and a lot of guns.
In fact, the Congressional Research Service Small Arms Survey estimates there are 310 million privately owned firearms in the U.S., which is almost one for every man, woman and child. Yippee (ki-yay). Welcome to America, where everyone’s already armed to the teeth, but buying a gun still needs to be as simple and stress-free as possible, lest we impinge on your “freedom”. (And where the phrase “well-regulated” was apparently written in the 2nd Amendment in invisible ink.) You want a gun, but can’t bear pesky paperwork or questions about your background? Just go to a gun show, plunk down a couple three samolians and walk away with a deadly weapon. Easy peasy!
Now, personally, I don’t think it’s that horrible to ask folks to jump through a hoop or two to obtain an object that, as Hillary Clinton pointed out, when used as directed, kills people. Seems to me, if you like guns so damn much, you should be willing to put in a little sweat equity to get one. Particularly when, let’s face it, most of life is damn hard; to succeed at pretty much anything, one has to struggle a little bit, right? Herewith, Six things that are actually harder to get in this country than a gun. Which, to me, proves we’ve got our priorities just ever so slightly screwed up.
1.) A refinance of your mortgage. Got a terrible deal from your bank and hope to get a better one now that interest rates are at all time lows? Good luck! According to Bankrate.com these are the documents you’ll need to gather before you even begin trying to get a refi: Proof of income — the last few pay stubs; monthly debt load — current mortgage, home equity loan, credit cards, auto loan, etc.; savings — current bank and brokerage statements; income tax returns, W-2 forms; credit score and credit reports (you’ll also need a credit score of at least 740).
There will also be numerous fees to pay as you go through the process. In fact, you should probably get a mortgage broker to help you out; this shit is complex. And you should expect to wait months for your bank to even respond. Months! Imagine if you had to wait months to get a gun. As the comedian Jimmy Tingle once imagined a gun buyer saying upon being told about a waiting period, “He’ll be gone by then!”
2.) Reservations to Wolvesmouth, the infamous “underground” restaurant in Los Angeles. Run by chef Craig Thornton out of his downtown loft, you need to be on an e-mail list to be “invited” to these occasional weekend banquets. Only sixteen diners can fit in Thornton’s apartment at a time and he chooses who can come to each meal personally, making sure the mix of guests suits his desire for an eclectic evening. According to The New Yorker, “It is the toughest reservation in the city”. Can you foresee a world in which an artisanal gun maker hand-picked the few lucky souls who could obtain his artfully crafted weapons? Probably not, cause we’re not talking bows and this ain’t The Hunger Games. (Honorable mention to Mission Chinese in New York, where there’s no sign and lines routinely go out the door to score a table. You can e-mail them at 10am every morning, when a few tables can be reserved, but only for one week out. Good luck with that.)
3. L.A. Lakers court-side seats. One of the hottest tickets in pro sports; even famed owner Jerry Buss didn’t have a court-side seat–he sat in a luxury box instead. Not only are they crazy expensive ($116,000 for a single season ticket) but there’s a waiting list and it doesn’t move quickly; each seat is “grandfathered in”, which means you’ll either have to convince a current holder to sell you their seat, or get lucky when one of them dies. Can you imagine if there were a fixed number of guns and you had to wait until an owner died to score one? (Actually, considering that owning a gun increases your chances of being killed by one, that might work out okay.) Apparently, tickets to the Masters are also legendarily difficult to come by. But does anyone really care about golf?
4. A deletion of your Facebook account. There are apparently two ways to do this and neither of them is a “one-click” affair. The first way is to visit the “Account Deletion Page” which will walk you through a number of steps, which include entering your password, e-mail address and CAPTCHA codes. Then you must stop yourself from logging in for fourteen days, or the deletion will automatically be revoked. (Fourteen days! That sounds like…a waiting period!) You can also e-mail Facebook directly. It will likely take a few days for them to respond to you, at which point you might want to e-mail them again. This time, don’t just e-mail their privacy account; try info and support too. Once they respond, you again might need to avoid logging in for fourteen days for the deactivation to take effect. In other words, you have to really, really want to quit Facebook to get out. It would probably be easier if you had a gun.
5. An abortion in Mississippi. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the only clinic in the state where you can obtain an abortion. If you live in, say, Corinth, that’s over a 200 mile trek. Once you get there, you’ll have to submit to state mandated counseling (during which the physician must tell you that getting an abortion could increase your chances of breast cancer–a claim many doctors dispute–and show you enlarged color photographs of fetuses). Then you’ll have to wait 24 hours; look–a waiting period! You’ll also have to make your way—at least twice, thanks to that waiting period!–through a phalanx of pro-lifers camped outside, singing hymns, praying and undoubtedly handing out pamphlets. Oh, and this clinic might be about to close, since Mississippi instituted a law that its doctors must have admitting privileges at a local hospital—all of which are loathe to grant them, lest they be a target of pro-life activists too. For now, a judge has issued an injunction keeping the clinic open during a pending lawsuit. Nevertheless, Mississippi is, like a handful of other states (in Kansas, for instance, 97% of counties have no abortion providers; in Louisiana, it’s 92%; in Wyoming, it’s 96%) this close to making an abortion virtually impossible to obtain within its borders. Even though, you know, abortion is a constitutionally protected right. Now, where have I heard that one before?
6. A shelter pet. A friend of mine was “rejected” from adopting a pet from a shelter because her house had “too many nice things in it”. (!) At most shelters and rescue organizations, your attempt to adopt a cat or dog that no one else wants, requires a fair amount of heavy lifting. You’ll have to fill out an extensive adoption application (websites offer tips on how to ace it, though, so there’s that), provide references, pay an adoption fee (from $30-$400) and agree to a home visit. Since I’m firmly of the belief that happiness is a warm puppy, not a warm gun, I wish we’d let pretty much everyone have a furry friend, but could go to prospective gun buyer’s homes, take a look around and say, “Um…based on the shit on your coffee table alone, we’re gonna have to go with no.”
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
