Guns Are The Original American Impotence Cure

Are you feeling powerless? Then ask your local gun shop owner if a firearm is right for you.

We, the people, love a phallus. Obelisks, skyscrapers, and flagpoles with flags, fluttering. Our nation’s most beloved symbol of potency, however, is the gun.

A gun can make a small man feel big. One squeeze of a trigger and bang! blood rushes into bloodless flesh. The spiritually limp become tumescent. Those who are terrified of a world that offers nothing but change are immediately engorged with cheap courage.

For a modest sum your average American can purchase power they probably feel they have been denied. With a gun, people can’t help but listen to you. You’re respected, which is great, especially when you feel you deserve respect without ever having done anything to earn that respect.

With a gun, you can hunt deer, dozens of deer, cowering in school supply closets. Hallelujah, guns! If only Jesus could have turned one of those loaves into a polymer-framed, short recoil-operated, locked-breech semi-automatic pistol.

Thanks to guns, you can protect what’s yours. Which is America. White people basically invented America. That’s why they shoot so many people. I forget which Native American Chief, upon witnessing the muskets of the white man in action, famously said “Goddammit.”

I’m a white person. My birth mother is Mexican-American. I don’t know the KKK’s current policy concerning half-breeds, but I look white, and that’s why I get such excellent service at Starbucks.

I have shot a gun before at a range in Texas. It’s quite a rush. You feel very powerful. I went during my dad’s first chemo treatments. I was angry and scared and I imagined blowing away his tumors. But cancer is bulletproof.

For those brief, fleeing moments of ka-pow, I was a discount God with the power of life and death in my soft, milky-smooth hands.

Shooting a gun is fun, like setting off fireworks. Then, afterwards, you realize “this isn’t a toy, it’s a tool designed to kill.”

Yes, a gun is just a tool. An inanimate object. A thing. But if you banned acoustic guitars, no one would be able to perform “Wonderwall” at the bar’s open mic. I suppose you could perform a version with a tambourine. So we’d have to ban that too. Or just ban the song “Wonderwall.”

I grew up in the South. I love the South. Biscuits and gravy, Flannery O’Connor, Stax Records. Martin Luther King. Oftentimes, the South gets blamed for the sins of the entire country. But the South loves its guns, because for many the guns make them feel like they still have a shot at resurrecting an aristocratic civilization where everyone knew their place. Especially the slaves.

When you see someone proudly displaying the Confederate flag, what you’re seeing is some sentimental slob pining for a simpler time, when white people were in charge. Things were different then. Nowadays, white people are in charge.

The South will rise again, wheeze, then sit back down.

So I get it. Guns are the Viagra that keeps the memory of stolen glory stiff and greasy.

This is why prescriptions for guns are written every hour of every day. 12 out of 10 NRA spokesmen agree that guns are good for racists with low self-esteem. People love to hate on the NRA. But I don’t. Those old coots are consistent in a comforting way.

The NRA is just the PR firm of an industry. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is the “smoking does not cause cancer” of firearm manufacturers. Their whole comedy bit is making the absurd argument that the second Amendment is in danger. They’re not Constitutional rights advocates. They are against gun regulation because gun regulation is bad for business.

The NRA do not bestow the right to gun ownership. The NRA and the firearms industry, simply, profit from that right. I mean, do you think illegal guns are harvested in illegal fields in South America? No.

The “right to bear arms” isn’t in danger. The second amendment isn’t going anywhere. It’s nearly impossible to amend the Constitution. The Founding Fathers saw to that. Last time we did it was over 40 years ago. There is no way two-thirds of the current state legislatures would vote to overturn an Amendment that basically gives America permission to kill itself. The Founding Fathers were a delightfully morbid bunch.

Never let it be said that America is not goth. America is goth as fuck.

Now, there are some people who disagree with me. If you find yourself in a polite discussion with such a person, you might find yourself asking “are they going to shoot me?” More often than not, people who are really passionate about their guns talk about their guns with an emotionally unbalanced fury that makes you think they’re going to shoot you. This is a good way to win an argument. This is a good way to win all arguments. Guns! What can’t they do?

Bring back the lives of the innocent, for one. Return grandmothers and sons and friends back into the arms of their loved ones.

Firearm fetishists don’t want their adolescent power fantasies ruined by talk of personal responsibility. Guns are only guaranteed to save your life if you’re the star of a movie like “Die Hard,” which is not, you may be surprised to learn, based on a true story. “Live by the sword, die by the sword” is the rare Bible quote that is backed up by modern statistics.

Here’s a lesson in capitalism: guns can be regulated effectively, and America will still buy enough to make every other country cringe and think “let’s never, ever invade those wackos.”

You have a right to own a gun. It will make you feel safe in a world of constant, anxiety-inducing change. If you’re freebasing self-pity, a gun will make you dangerous. But make no mistake: America loves guns because Americans love to feel like they’re fully in charge of their destiny.

But please see a doctor if you experience an erection for more than four hours.