The Weekly Screed (#1001)

Guns and bigots. Bigots and guns

by David Benjamin

“There are tons of guns floating around Georgia, and not much harder to procure than a bowl of goldfish.”

— Gail Collins

MADISON, Wis. — Ironically, a pathologically horny gunman in Atlanta has pointed a way out of the voting rights crisis that has shaken once reliably Republican strongholds like Georgia, Arizona, Orange County and Wauwautosa. Currently, in response to the frightening turnout of socialist zealots who allegedly elected Joe Biden and the Indian babe as president and vice president, these once-solid conservative bastions are hastily drafting laws to cull the riffraff from the voting rolls. 

“There’s a better, simpler way to prevent the blacks, browns, yellows, Jews and millennial upstarts from voting for the Wrong People,” according to political guru Billy Bob “Bubba” Buchenwald, whom I got on the phone the day after the shootings that killed eight people at massage spas in the Atlanta area.

I was hoping to elicit a note of regret from a spokesperson — my friend Bubba — who has long been a passionate advocate for unfettered Second Amendment freedoms. I noted that the “Asian spa” gunman had reportedly bought his murder weapons legally. As it turned out, Bubba was not only unchastened by the confessed atrocities of Robert Aaron Long. He was inspired.

“Let’s face it. Passing legislation is a slow, bureaucratic mess,” said Bubba. “We can more efficiently accomplish our mission — of packing state legislatures and the U.S. Congress with white Christian men of Anglo-European loyalties — through the clever use of gun-control measures.”

“Gun control?” I gasped. “But I thought gun control was your worst nightmare. I thought you were terrified of Democrats taking away everyone’s firearms.”

“I’ve evolved,” said Bubba slyly. “Now, I think we should take guns away — from Democrats — while we forcibly arm every living registered Republican.”

“You’re gonna arm all Republicans?”

“Absolutely. For their own safety. They shouldn’t be allowed to leave home without a gun and fifty rounds of ammo. It’s a jungle out there.”

I have to admit that my mind started to boggle. I asked Bubba to elaborate on this breathtaking social innovation.

“It’s so simple I’m embarrassed. I should’ve thought of it before,” he said. “For example, just take a gander at the demographics of the massage parlor massacre.”

“Demographics?”

“Absolutely. Eight people gone, right? Most of them minority types, in a part of Georgia that voted for Biden and the Indian babe. That’s eight Democrat votes that you can scratch off the next election.”

He went on. “And the kid with the gun? He probably didn’t even vote. I bet he spent Election Day getting his ashes hauled at a massage parlor. So your final net score is eight for Us, nothing for Them, one abstention.”

I objected cautiously. “Yes, but you’re not saying that armed reactionaries should wander the streets and barge into stores and offices blasting away at anybody who looks like he or she might be a Democrat?”

Bubba was silent on the phone. 

I said, “Oh my God! You ARE saying that armed reactionaries should wander the streets and barge into stores and offices blasting away at anybody who looks like he or she might be a Democrat.”

“Hey,” said Bubba. “It’s not as though this something new and shocking. Republicans — and Democrats! — have been defending the rights of mass killers to kill the masses since the Klan put an end to Reconstruction. Public carnage has always been one of America’s favorite problem-solvers.”

For some reason, I thought of Marshal Dillon on Saturday night for 635 weeks, starting out every episode by sauntering onto the sunny main street of Dodge and blowing the brains out of a nameless stuntman. 

“Think about it this way,” said Bubba. “I’m part of the shrinking, racist white minority that has held American politics and culture in a death grip for 400 years. But we’re losing hold. We’re outnumbered. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Shooting strangers?”

“Liberal strangers!” replied Bubba. 

His voice softened. He said, “Look, at first, I understand, we’ll make a few mistakes and off a few Kelly Loeffler voters. But after a while, we’ll be able to spot our friends because a) we’ll all be white as snow and b) we’ll all be packing heat. Folks’ll say to each other, ‘Hey, nice skin!’ and ‘Whoa! Where’d you get that beautiful AR-15?’ We’ll be like one big happy family.”

“But won’t murder,” I hinted, “still be against the law.”

“Of course it will. We are the Law and Order party!” said Bubba. “But you have to consider ratios here. Let’s say, for example, that I mosey over to the Mall of Georgia and spray a few hundred rounds. In the process, I manage to cancel thirteen Democrat votes of various races and creeds. Then, like a good citizen, I drop my trusty Kalashnikov and surrender to the cops. I end up on Death Row, where I’ll never get to vote again. But look at the ratio. I lost my lonely little pro-Trump vote but I took away thirteen that would have otherwise gone to Biden, the Indian babe and all the other cancel-culture libtards who hate America.”

“Thirteen to one,” I said.

“You can’t argue with a ratio like that,” said Bubba. “And can you imagine… can you imagine ten thousand Proud Oath-Keeping Conservative Christians, heeled, locked and loaded with Uzis and Mach 10s, convoying over to their neighborhood Black churches on the Sunday morning before Election Day?”

I actually didn’t want to imagine that. But it was clear that Bubba was taking the concept of voter ID to a whole new depth. 

“Bottom line,” said Bubba. “Guns and bigots. Bigots and guns. We go together like… well, fireworks and the Fourth of July.”

“Yes,” I said, “like pepper and saltpeter.”

“Hey, like Othello and Desdemona.”

“Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Bonnie and Clyde!”

“Gettysburg and Chickamauga!”

“Leopold and Lobe!”

“Hiroshima and Nagasaki…”