Bushmaster ad
One of today's discoveries relevant to Sandy Hook is the longstanding ad campaign for the Bushmaster rifle used by Adam Lanza, and also by the Washington D.C. area snipers. (Image taken from Gawker.) Talking Points Memo has multiple excellent submissions on the connection between quasi-military weapons (as opposed to sport and hunting guns) and the need for a huge personal arsenal when the black and brown looters and moochers come for your Gold during the deficit-created Tribulations. All true, but it misses another factor…
Sperm count.
Male sperm count has been dropping mysteriously for some time. I'm not that type of scientist, but I'm willing to believe that some environmental cause is likely to blame. Researchers who don't appear to be cranks are looking hard at BPA, a plastic used extensively in food packaging. In fact, this idea is getting into the mainstream, rather like the idea one reason for the nationwide drop in crime was the elimination of indoor lead paint that impaired mental functioning (a known hazard of lead) in the inner-city children whose homes had peeling paint toddlers could eat.
The gun culture states coincide with Ground Zero of the American obesity epidemic. All sorts of the bad food consumed in that region (e.g., soda pop) come in BPA-contaminated containers. Surely it's plausible that a man who, perhaps subconsciously or through some yet-unidentified internal biofeedback, realizes his sperm count is abnormally low feels the need to buy a Bushmaster to compensate. If so, eliminating BPA might do for the gun-crazy militia culture what the removal of the lead paint is alleged to have done to the national crime rate. (And for you younger readers, huge parts of our cities that are now thriving or at least livable were No-Go Zones for the middle-class thirty years ago.) This might not be so hard, if we announce that it is a key ingredient in black helicopters (I have no idea if this is true). Even if we fail, we can win in the long run if the gun nuts can't reproduce.