Guns are icky and they hurt people.

Or so says “retired diplomat” Dan Simpson, the crackpot Toledo Blade editorial board member.

I’ve read his crapola for too many years now; it’s tinged with a…tad bit of Bush Derangement Syndrome. (And when I see his picture with that odd smile and oddly flipped-over hair, he looks like he’s out of the nursing home on a day pass. I can almost hear one of the nurses shouting in his ear: “MR. SIMPSON, WE’RE GOING TO PUT YOUR NEW SUIT ON YOU AND YOU’RE GOING OUT FOR A DRIVE TO LOOK AT THE PRETTY CHRISTMAS LIGHTS! WON’T THAT BE NICE!” And then he drools all over his tie and they sponge it off.

That’s a cheap shot, but his article is just so off the wall that it has to be fake. This has to be something he put together as pure satire to piss off the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Who exactly could take this seriously:

First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

Okay…. Godwin’s Law says that the first person to bring up a Nazi allusion in a discussion automatically loses, but…wasn’t this policy employed somewhere in the world within the last seventy years or so?

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest.

Uh huh. Stand in that line over there and make sure your papers are in order and….

Seriously, is this guy serious?

All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard.

In Simpsonworld, these guards will be the people to know. I hope the power doesn’t go to their head, what with being the only armed citizens in a disarmed country. Naaah–never happen.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work.

If my eyes ever pop back into my head, I’ll be able to find my jaw somewhere on the floor…. Did he really say “special squads of police”?

Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

God bless America, land that I love….

It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States.

Ya think so?

There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies.

Almost hard to believe this could happen–people with guns in a gunless society would take advantage of the situation?

I almost didn’t blog about this–it can’t be real. It just can’t be. I’m falling for it, and I’m going to look really stupid.

And before anyone starts to hyperventilate and think I’m a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take his gun from his cold, dead hands….

Wow–he ain’t kidding, is he.