Wouldn’t this be a great time for more guns?

Whenever a high-profile shooting takes place, the nation is inevitably and repeatedly subjected to the same stupid sloganeering:

-If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns
-An armed society is a polite society
-”The guys with the guns make the rules”

That last one was a bit of braggadocio from America’s leading gun fetishist, Wayne LaPierre, President of the National Rifle Association.

Well, Wayne, the guy who made the rules in Tucson yesterday was Jared Loughner, the 22 year old crazy who police say shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and seventeen others, killing six. Thanks to the efforts of powerful lobbyists like you — through your opposition to things like background checks, waiting periods and bans on cop killer bullets — Loughner bought his gun legally and quite easily right there in Tucson.

Mr. LaPierre isn’t likely to repeat his rules comment in the wake of yesterday’s carnage, but he did manage a boilerplate statement of sympathy for Representative Giffords and yesterday’s other victims of gun violence:

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this senseless tragedy, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, and their families during this difficult time. We join the rest of the country in praying for the quick recovery of those injured.

How touching.

The people on whose behalf LaPierre lobbies — gun dealers and manufacturers — make money from the sale of arms. You know, arms like the one that was used to murder nine year old Christina Green yesterday.

One of LaPierre’s constituents is Eric Thompson, who makes a living selling weapons online. Among Thompson’s customers was Seung-Hui Cho, a Virginia Tech student who used Thompson’s legally-purchased product to murder thirty two and wound twenty five people at that college in 2007.

In a coincidence which he said “blew him away,” Thompson later legally sold a gun to Steven Kazmierczak, who used it to kill six and wound eighteen at the University of Northern Illinois in 2008.

Gun nuts around the country later argued — as they always do and almost certainly will in this case — that the remedy to the outbreak of violence wasn’t to make it more difficult to get guns, but easier. They want to arm everybody.

And why not? Not only is it profitable, it’s easy. Just convince Americans that they’re all Rambos-in-waiting, if only the nanny state would get out of their way and let citizen action heroes defend themselves and each other. If one of yesterday’s victims had been in possession of a firearm, none of this would ever have happened, they’ll say.

Nevermind the smarty-pants scientists who have repeatedly found that, for example:

A gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide, criminal assault or homicide, or unintentional shooting death or injury than to be used in a self-defense shooting.

Guns are used to intimidate and threaten 4 to 6 times more often than they are used to thwart crime.

Every year there are only about 200 legally justified self-defense homicides by private citizens compared with over 30,000 gun deaths.

People in possession of a gun are 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault.

Forget the law enforcement officers from around the country who consistently support stronger gun control laws. And who cares that

It’s only a matter of time until serial Second Amendment misrepresenters start ranting about the need for more and not fewer guns. To them, the solution to the problem of violent psychopaths like Jared Loughner having easy access to deadly weapons is to broaden access to firearms by violent psychopaths like Jared Loughner. Makes perfect sense — especially if you can make a buck off it.