“It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away, but that’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semi-automatic handguns.”

That trite nonsense—found in comment sections of right-wing blogs and across social media—was posted not too long ago on Facebook by Houston mom Christy Sheats. She’s the now infamous mother who tragically ended a family meeting in her living room by chasing her two daughters out the front door while shooting them to death, before she herself was shot and killed by police.

It’s the kind of thing that would lead to emergency hearings in Congress—if the GOP were not a corrupt, decaying edifice, only interested in political contributions and appeasing its most hardcore base.

Instead, we’ve had Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) spending $7 million and 800 pages to tell us what we already know about Benghazi.

Because a Democrat must be at fault when Americans are murdered in a war zone halfway around the world after being attacked by terrorists utilizing “small arms fire.” Something obviously could have been done immediately from 5,200 miles away to avert this tragedy.

When those small arms allow a mother to kill her daughters on an American street, on the other hand, there’s clearly nothing to be done. This one is intractable. Which is why it’s only been solved by every other First World democracy that has tried—everyone but us.

Gowdy also can’t form a coherent sentence when asked his “thoughts” on whether those on a terror watch list should be able to buy guns. Once again, it is the Democratic executive branch that failed to protect Americans in Benghazi. It is not, however, the Republican Congress that blocks gun-safety legislation, that isn’t protecting Americans on the suburban streets of Texas. Or dance clubs in Orlando. Or movie theaters in Lafayette, Louisiana. Or schools in Newtown, Connecticut.

If only all these rabid gun nuts who populate the online world with a mouse, a grudge, and not two IQ points to rub together were right. If only making bold, pompous pronouncements about how guns really make us safer and how statistics are questionable—you know like global warming, and gravity—made it so.

Then we wouldn’t have to read about a gun-toting soccer mom who sued to open-carry her Glock to her 5-year-old’s games and then was killed by her husband with, yes, a gun. Or a pro-gun activist not big on securing her guns shot in the back by her toddler while driving. I guess that’s why there are no recent posts on her Facebook page, “Jamie Gilt for gun sense,” where she is pictured happily holding a gun.

Or a 2-year-old reaching into his mom’s purse at the grocery store and shooting her to death. Or one organizer of a gun fetish march shooting his co-organizer to death during a drunken argument.

You do realize we could probably do this all day.

Here’s the thing. Families who don’t choose to live stupidly have rights. We don’t countenance blowing cigarette smoke into our kid’s face. Or feeding them sugar on top of lard. Or putting them on top of the car like they’re Mitt Romney’s dog. But somehow, easy access to guns by just anyone, no matter their history or background, that’s a cultural thing or something.

No, actually, it’s a death thing.

Sheats also was fond of sharing a meme on Facebook that went like this: “I have 10 guns. Obama wants eight of my guns. How many guns do I have? That’s right, I have 10 guns.”

Too bad she, like all these other silly gun obsessives, was wrong about President Obama. Too bad he didn’t actually protect her. By taking her guns.