Maybe we should make it harder to get guns

Oy--another shooting in America. Inside a shopping mall. This time up near Portland.

(Ok--full disclosure: I have a relative living in Portland--therefore, my critics will scream that I am too close to this one to be making commentary.)

I have a theory about gun violence in America: We have so much gun violence because guns are so easy to obtain. And there is no shortage of ammunition either.

Perhaps we should make it harder to get guns and ammo.

Now, I realize that the cowboys in the crowd will tell me that what we need is more armed citizens. Ok, we are getting more and more armed citizens.

But they all seem to be psychotic ax-murderers. Not that you ever seen one wielding an ax to murder someone. Why? Because it is so easy to get a gun and thousands of rounds of ammunition. (If there were no guns, they would kill people with axes--basically they are crazy homicidal people.)

One of my problems with the armed response to the gun violence is that it presumes that your average citizen can hit the broadside of a barn. I know that I can...provided that I am armed with a small tactical nuke. And I am standing on the inside of the barn.

Seriously, outside of those people who have made their living through violence--criminals, police, and military personal--your average citizen is not going to be able to hit the right person while they are being shot at. And I am not necessarily sure by the steeped-in-violence crowd. Look at your typical study about how many bullets it takes to hit a shooting target; the core principle to nail such a target is to shoot lots and lots of bullets in the direction of the perpetrator.

Here is a cracked ball prediction: If someone starts shooting in a mall, and there are a dozen other people who are armed, you are going to end up with three dozen friendly fire hits before the smoke clears.

I am sorry, but the "let's arm everyone, including grandma" crowd is going to have to do a lot better if they are going to convince me that more guns are the answer to the gun violence in this county.