I'm old enough to remember "All in the Family". It was a seminal situation comedy on CBS back in the early 70s. Archie Bunker, a reactionary warehouse "everyman" from Queens, NY was always in conflict with his liberal daughter and her husband, as well as with reality. Archie never seemed to see the changes around him as good, and resisted, in many instances, by just pretending nothing was different.
I'm not sure exactly how this came about, but Archie once somehow got onto the local news in an "Everyman editorial segment". His editorial...how to stop airline hijackings. Those of you old enough remember the heyday of airling hijackings in the 70s. Usually one or more (sometimes terrorists, sometimes not) would take control of an airliner for ransom, or maybe just to have it fly to a "friendly to them" country.
Anyway...Archies idea was..."Arm all your passengers." Oh, how we laughed at poor Archie. Who could be so silly as to think something so stupid would help such a situation. All passengers now with guns? That was so obviously a recipe for disaster. Nobody thought that was a real idea. The simple black and white way of looking at such a problem was just not only not feasible, but dangerous. No one would ever recommend that in real life.
Fast forward to today. And here we have the answer to gun violence in this country from gun enthusiasts, the NRA, etc. as ...."arm all your citizens.". But now no one is laughing. Why not?
How can this idea be considered anything but stupid? How can this become an actual position in the discussion about gun violence? What did we allow to happen in the last 40yrs that makes this now a position worth serious debate?
It's time to laugh these people off the stage. It's long past time for a serious discussion. And serious discussion should not include positions that belong in sitcoms.