TALLAHASSEE – In the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the liberal media has been all over the good folks of the Florida legislature for declining to debate the possibility of restrictions on “assault rifles” and instead opting to spend its time passing a nonbinding resolution declaring porn a “public health threat.”

While it’s easy to criticize and find fault with the Florida legislature for what might appear to be skewed priorities, I believe people are willfully ignoring some important points, just so they can govern-shame the poor, underpaid reps and senators of the Sunshine State.

For starters, for the Florida legislature, it’s much easier to write a resolution when all you really need to do is copy and paste from something the Utah legislature already wrote, perhaps making a few tweaks here and there, like changing the word “crisis” to “hazard” or “risk.”

So far as I’m aware, Utah hasn’t declared the AR-15 a public health hazard or crafted statutory language with the words “whereas” and “dead kids” in the same sentence, so let’s have some patience with Florida here. I’m sure they’re just waiting for Utah to show some sensible leadership in this area.

Secondly, unlike a law or regulation which then must be enforced by someone, a nonbinding resolution is something a legislature can pass and feel good about, without the meddlesome follow-on requirement for anybody to do anything.

Instead of bellyaching and nitpicking about a perceived lack of action on the part of the Florida legislature, why doesn’t one of these liberal media geniuses offer a practical solution – like proposing a nonbinding resolution declaring the act of shooting people to be a very bad thing to do?

So long as the hypothetical resolution in question had some narrowing construction, like a clause or two making it clear shooting people isn’t always a bad thing (like if they’re trying to shoot you, or they’re wearing a hoodie, or might be a Muslim, for example), I’m sure the Florida legislature would pass the resolution with relatively little resistance.

If we play our cards right, we might even be able to get other states to follow suit, starting a nationwide movement to declare shooting people to be “basically, pretty much wrong” in many different circumstances, ideally including while they’re trying to study for a history exam.

The best part (unless you’re some kind of wacko progressive who thinks there ought to be significant limits on my God-given right to amass serious firepower) is once all 50 states have declared shooting people to be almost as bad as watching porn, we still don’t have to do anything to enforce the resolution. We can just give ourselves a big, collective pat on the back – assuming the safety catch on the rifle we carry slung across our backs is in the correct position at the time, naturally.

Of course, nothing as ambitious as getting every state in the Union to declare in nonbinding fashion that their citizens probably ought not to shoot each other is going to be easy, or fast, or accomplished without a few thousand of those citizens shooting a few thousand other citizens in the meantime. And of course, there also needs to be some give and take between the godless commies who want to take all our guns (and other liberties) away and all us good, honest, hardworking Americans who need easy access to assault rifles, just in case a pornographer ever shows up on our porch.

For example, I think one potential compromise between the commonsense notion of all arming teachers with bazookas and the insane proposition of making it even a little harder for random assholes to buy any gun they please would be to arm teachers with hammers, so they can summarily smash the smartphone, tablet or laptop of any student suspected of having dangerous pornography thereon.

See? It’s no so hard to come up with reasonable ways to keep our kids safe, without also needing to do anything which resembles work. You simply need to find the right middle ground – assuming the position you occupy on the middle ground still provides a clear line of fire at the target.

Gun shadow image © Gaspar Barka