How about we regulate guns just like abortions?

ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

“Ain’t no pink fag legislator gonna say I can’t have guns.” — The Fugs, 1968, “Johnny Pissoff Meets the Red Angel.”

While it seems just about everybody rightly these days is discussing and debating the issue of guns in the United States in the wake of the Florida high school shootings, I have a proposal that probably will throw gasoline on the fires.

I hereby propose that all gun laws be treated in the same way as abortion laws.

I understand a lot of people will respond with the question — What’s abortion got to do with guns? In both arenas, the illogical conclusion is the taking of lives. Deliberately.

Conservatives and right-wingers for quite some time have maintained that since the Roe vs. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court 45 years ago, abortions have become too accessible for women, and they have flatly asserted that abortion is murder of innocent victims.

Though abortion is protected by law in the U.S. since it became legal by court decision, it has become heavily regulated, to the point there are some areas in which it is very difficult for a woman to be able to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Though some still want abortion to be regarded as illegal once again, their Pro-Life politicians have failed to deliver the goods and have settled for restrictions.

Over the past 45 years, there have been laws passed that require abortion seekers to go through waiting periods, to talk with people who try to talk them out of it and a variety of other roadblocks. But it is still legal.

Current United States laws still could honor the Second Amendment to the Constitution by insisting gun ownership remain legal, but regulate and restrict it much in the same manner as abortion. Background checks, waiting periods and prohibitions under certain circumstances are commonplace for abortions, but they remain legal.

I have no quarrel with law-abiding people owning guns, but perhaps the time has come to insist on regulations. England and Australia, after horrible incidents of mass shooting, adopted more strict gun laws and since then haven’t had to endure what we Americans once again have done in the last week.

The United States seems to stand alone on the planet in horrific mass shooting incidents, and I stand with Lynn Mandaville in being angry about the business as usual response by our lawmakers, ever since Columbine in 1999. One British writer suggested that America lost the moral high ground forever when it did nothing in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre of young children and teachers in 2012. It’s been five years.

I believe the money poured into Congress and state legislatures by the National Rifle Association has an effect. As Bob Dylan said long ago, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”

So besides proposing guns be regulated just like abortions, I propose that this amazing and angry movement started by young people also target the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2010. It’s been eight years.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is work to be done.