

Here's a little Robert Earl Keen Jr. to kick off the official start of the Christmas season...

With Thanksgiving here and the Christmas holidays close behind, I thought it would be useful to give readers a heads up on just how overbearing these gun-hating liberals have become. Witness this recent letter to Dear Amy :

Dear Amy: When our family gets together for any holiday, my niece's husband has to bring a gun with him. He has a permit. He thinks his permit gives him permission to carry a loaded gun wherever he goes. He even takes it to church. I have requested that he leave the gun at home when coming to my house. He says that if he cannot bring his gun then his family won't come to our home. There will be small children at the house, but he says it's OK because his kids are fine with it. Should I let him bring the gun or tell them they need to stay home? — Gun Battle

Well! It turns out Dear Amy is just another bleeding heart, biased liberal "journalist." Does she ask an NRA spokesperson for proper gun etiquette, where she would have learned that an armed Christmas party is a polite Christmas party? No, she does not. Instead, she turns to the gun-hating Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who responded with this most likely phony statistic: "A gun in any home is four times more likely to be used to kill or injure a loved one in an unintentional or accidental shooting than it is to be used for self-defense (bradycampaign.org)." Oh yeah, right!

Then this silly woman goes on to cite the (probably liberal) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who claim that more than 4,000 children and teens are wounded or killed in unintentional shootings every year, and concludes, "Your niece's husband may have a legal right to carry his gun, but you also have a right to maintain a weapons-free household."

Excuse me? See, this is what's wrong with America today. Your comfort zone ends at my right to keep everyone else in the room on high alert. If you're going to behave, you have no reason to worry about me discharging my firearm in your direction! (Okay, there was that one time when I dropped my Glock and it shot Cousin Earl's ear off, but that was a simple accident and was just as likely if I were slicing a loaf of bread with a Bowie knife.)

And then there was last year's party, when my ex showed up with the new spouse to drop off the kids and we got into that fight. I admit, I was drunk and I did brandish my weapon, but it was only to make a point: "Don't mess with Texas!" (Even though I'm not from anywhere near Texas, I just wanted to make that point.)

Anyway, someone who sees carrying a gun at a holiday party as anything but a plus must have a screw loose. Look at the benefits: No home invasions! No Grinch popping down the chimney to steal your presents! No Uncle Jack, mouthing off about how if they'd had DNA tests back then, I'd be calling him Daddy. Why, you son of a...

Happy Open Carry Day, everyone!

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters’ mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.