In Tuesday's Huffington Post, Jane Smiley wrote an interesting piece (in light of the nasty business at Virginia Tech on Monday) about guns.

I'd long since given up the ghost about gun control. Not only did I come to believe it was pollyannish to think that there was much chance of legislation designed to do away with firearms in this country. I lost confidence in my once strongly held belief that it would be a good idea.

In a sense, I suppose I'd internalized a rationalization that I recognized in Ms. Smiley's column: The folks of the left have to make peace with the notions of guns in this country the same way folks in the right have to come to terms with abortion. This assigns virtue to to neither phenomenon. Neither does it imply assent. It's just a way to get on with one's life in an imperfect world over which no one has absolute control—no matter how correct they are, or what their God tells them to believe.

I didn't study the column very carefully, because, having given up on the argument, I'd pretty much lost interest in the issue. I suspect that guns are here to stay whether I like it or not.

But then there was this:

“I was talking to a man about guns (who) said 'I gave my gun away because, when I had it, every time something happened that made me mad, my mind would start circling around that gun, and I would be thinking about using it. So, I got rid of it and I'm glad I did.'”

Every now and then, I happen across one of those formulations that acts upon an open-mind as a sort of mental course-corrector. This was one of them. I suddenly realized that my equation involving guns and abortions was deeply flawed, if not totally false. The comparison just doesn't work on too many levels.

I considered the possibility that perhaps there is no apt comparison. Maybe the American gun-thing is a unique with no congruent analogue.

It was late as I contemplated this whole conundrum—the middle of the night, a time when, not so terribly long ago, I would smoke as I pondered and typed and pondered some more.

It was in the midst of this little reverie that another line of thought occurred to me. I've long since lost the urge to smoke. Just as the ex-gun-guy lost his urge to shoot people, if only hypothetically. He sounded to me like a guy who's had a pop or two in his time, which would provide a link between he and I—and an illustration perhaps, of the rationale behind the formation of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, (which I always regarded as a logical subsidiary to the Department of Non Sequitur.)

Anyhoo... Back in the good old days, when Bill Clinton was president, one of the few initiatives undertaken by his administration with which I took strident exception was their stealthy (and, in retrospect, positively ingenious) war on cigarettes. I took umbrage at the time, over their pretentious and impertinent effort to interfere with my God-given and constitutionally protected right to inhale the toxic fumes of burning vegetative material as I saw fit.

I blamed Hillary for the ban on smoking in the White House, which made way for a ban on smoking in airplanes, and then bars, and then ballparks, and then buildings in general. My Marlboro-addled mind became increasingly indignant as this intrusion into my aberrant behavior accreted.

It was about this time that the price of tobacco started to go up, and my lungs began to make discouraging noises, and smoking became increasingly inconvenient, unfashionable and indefensible.

It wasn't until well after the fact that I realized the that the price spike was occasioned by Ol' Bill's unambiguous message to Big Tobacco that now'd be a good time to start thinking about reworking their business model.

He was all for giving them time to reorganize their affairs. A sudden shut-down of the tobacco industry would represent an enormous insult to the nation's economy—but so to was lung cancer and emphysema. It was decided that supporting the former while ignoring the latter had become politically contraindicated.

So, the once-ridiculed lawsuits, filed by folks who claimed to be too stupid to realize that smoking wasn't good for them until it was too late, began to enjoy the support of the federal government. Cigarette machines became as rare as spittoons. People started going to jail for selling smokes to kids. Tobacco executives were villainized before Congress. The gig was up.

Sure enough, little over ten years ago, I shamelessly succumbed to a classic case of governmental coercion augmented by a little help from my then-fiancé.

I quit smoking—an outcome for which I shall be forever grateful, not only for the manifest health benefits, but also for the fact that nowadays, the only people who still smoke are those poor wretches standing outside in the cold and rain in front of their office buildings, and the misbegotten lot down at the bottom of the food chain, all feeding an intellectually indefensible habit at a rate of six bucks a pack. (My apologies to the exceptions to this rule—whoever you are. No offense.)

Meanwhile, the folks who used to trade in tar and nicotine, (in keeping with the old tiger and stripes dynamic) have moved on to the trans-fat and high-fructose corn syrup market and are still living large on human misery.

And I, to my eternal astonishment, have transited from a libertarian perspective akin to that of an NRAista with a hard-on for his machine gun, to a moral relativist who, despite his residual queasiness about the government making personal decisions on his behalf, is nevertheless profoundly relieved to a) wake up in the morning without the earmarks of a classic tubercular case and, b) be able to eat dinner in a restaurant without the toxifying blue-gray cloud, redolent of a tire-fire.

This is model—the psychological and practical approach to effective, sane gun control: Don't make them illegal—make them inconvenient. Make them expensive. (Daniel Patrick Moynihan once recommended a 1000% tax on bullets. That's a thinking feller's solution to a technical constitutional snafu.)

Make gun ownership a serious commitment, laden with profound responsibility, and not just a matter of principle espoused by the random-yahoo/freelance-constitutional-scholar community.

Attach truly dire consequences to gun ownership, then emphasize and embellish these consequences to an extent that shifts the onus from justifying the why to acknowledging the why-not.

Reward good citizenship. Relax the standards for a long-time, unblemished aficionado, but diminish the reliance on the benefit of the doubt. Eliminate caprice. Make gun ownership hard for first-timers. At very least, make them prove they aren't crazy—and not just to the satisfaction of a pawn-broker on the outskirts of Roanoke..

Make guns like cigars, as opposed to cigarettes, (which is, admittedly, an imperfect analogy, but better than guns v. abortions.)

As is seemingly always the case in the wake of such hideousness, there are those who seek to preempt any contemplation of American gun law in light of the events at Blacksburg where, yesterday, even as the toll was yet to be determined and the identity of the gunman was still unknown, calculated whispers circulated as to his immigration status and ethnicity.

There was prematurely high dudgeon regarding the failure to shut down the campus and alert the community sooner—as if there was fault to be found in not anticipating an armed maniac on a suicide mission.

There was talk about more cameras, fences, ID cards and armed freaking guards, for chrissakes, on American college campuses of a non-military nature. And an underlying sentiment emanated (from that place from whence such things always seem to come,) that strongly suggested that anyone who talked about gun control at a time like this was either un-American, insensitive, crazy or all of the above.

A debate took place many years ago on the wondrously subversive 70's sitcom, All in the Family, between Archie Bunker, the arch-conservative patriarch, bigot, demagogue and “veteran of dubya-dubya-two,” and his doctrinaire, idealistic son-in-law, who he openly regarded as a no-good, pinko- hippie-Polack, and derisively dubbed “meathead.”

The subject was guns (lest anyone think that this issue is a recent development.) Predictably, Archie was a staunch, closed-minded, pro-gun interpretor of the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

“Meathead,” on the other hand was characteristically anti-gun, and attempted to advance his position by pointing out the inordinate number of Americans who'd been killed with handguns over the preceding year. Archie's retort was priceless in it's illogic and hopeless in its misunderstanding.

“Would you rather,” he asked, exasperatedly. “That they was pushed outta windows?”

I used to laugh at that exchange as a post-vaudevillian gag. Now, I treat it as a serious question and think to myself.

Some of those kids at Virginia Tech jumped out of windows voluntarily, just to get away from the loony with the Glock and a box of bullets that he picked up for five hundred bucks at a Blue Ridge Mountain pawn shop.

I definitely prefer those odds.

This may come across as a tad harsh, and I apologize in advance if I offend, but I just can't seem to let go of this one...

Cynthia McKinney has (sort of) apologized--and, in a characteristically provocative and unconventional move that has chagrinned her congressional colleagues of all ethnic and political stripes, she has engaged a bodyguard, who promptly intervened today in a decidedly inappropriate fashion when a Cox reporter tried to interview the distinguished Ms. Thang (R-Ga).

"I put yo' ass in jail!" said McKinney's personal security consultant, while claiming to be a "police officer." The incident was captured on video here.

I realize that I have given this matter a bit more attention that it probably deserves, but among my most petted peeves is the propensity of some people not only to scream racism whenever they're called to account for their own, manifestly bad behavior, but to openly encourage others to do the same.

The irony here is that, as the C-Mac/Cop-Slap saga continues to unfold, her position becomes blacker and blacker and wronger and wronger, as she edges closer and closer to that rarest of social transgressors: the African-American racist.

It has been said that such a thing cannot exist, that black people, by definition, cannot be racist. This theory typically specifies that only white or Korean or Latino or Jewish people can be racist. It's on account of slavery, you see, which, historically speaking, always trumps famines, invasions, occupations, pogroms, etc. (And don't you dare say nothin' 'bout no Black folk in Africa back in the day, selling off they own people into the slave trade. Dat'd be racis'.)

Unbridled inanity? I think so. But to openly and honestly argue this point is to don the garb of the villain--especially if you're a straight white male (we're responsible for everything from slavery to tooth decay), but the world's most celebrated black activist/comedian with a couple of PhDs: Bill Cosby.

So, call me a racist, but I jus' gotsta say dat, on accounta dis C-Mac thang, I sho'ly does gots my shadenfizzle on, and I wants to thank the sistah fo' givin' me the opportunity to speak mah mind. Y' feel me?

And now...On to the Grand Jury!

I was disappointed to note Josh Marshall's inclination to give such a generous benefit of doubt to the pugnacity and petulance demonstrated of late by Cynthia McKinney.

I mean, c’mon… she punched a Capitol police officer, in front of God and everybody—and now she wants to turn it into a Rodney King racial profiling incident, averring through her attorney that she was "just a victim of being in Congress while black."

Please.

Nancy Pelosi says, “I would not make a big deal of this.” I think this is a mistake. In fairness, were I part of Democratic congressional leadership under the circumstances, I would be disinclined to make a big deal out of it either. But, to minimize this incident is to take caucus loyalty to a counterproductive extreme. As much as it pains me to side with Denny Hastert’s office on anything, they have a valid point when they wonder, “How many officers would have to be punched before it becomes a big deal?”

Josh wonders whether the Capitol Hill police would issue an arrest warrant for a “more wired” member of the body. First, let me suggest that slapping around Federal cops on government property is a tenuous strategy by which to become “more wired,” so this hypothetical is highly unlikely ever to be tested.

But moreover, it’s hard to imagine even the most egregious characters of Congress reacting to this matter the way McKinney did. Anyone else in her position would either a) promptly and abjectly apologize or, b) vociferously call for the officer’s head (or, perhaps c) hunker down and negotiate a make-nice settlement behind closed doors.)

Ms. McKinney does none of the above. Instead, in a statement issued on Wednesday, she pointedly refers to the “white officer” as the “the offending officer,” but does not go so far as to find fault with his behavior—or hers, for that matter.

Yet, clearly, somebody was out of line here—either the cop or the congresswoman. Given the fact that the Capitol Police are willing to go to the mat on this one, and that they claim to have the whole thing on video, my money is with the cop.

I’m no fan of the panicky inanity that is post 9/11 law enforcement. I detest the insipid and humiliating game of Simon Says to which I am subjected every time I try to board an airplane. I see an awful lot of money being wasted on the ineffectual window dressing that too often passes for National Security. And I see altogether too many officials taking credit for making our nation more secure, when this hardly appears to be the case.

But I have difficulty finding fault with a policy of erring on the side of caution where it pertains to screening individuals entering Federal facilities in which members of the US Congress convene.

Members of Congress are issued badges—pins, actually—that Ms. McKinney reported routinely refuses to wear. Yet, in her statement, she asserts that, “it is the expectation of most Members of Congress that Capitol Hill Police officers know who they are"

“A proud bunch” indeed. If this is the expectation—that workaday civil servants are expected to memorize the names and faces of 525 people, many of whom are replaced on a bi-annual basis, while simultaneously surveilling the environment in which these people congregate for potential threats, and all the while navigating the minefield of hubris and privilege that informs this workplace—then the least the members could do is cooperate.

It’s a serious, largely thankless gig. You may recall that a couple of these guys were shot to death back in 1998. And if the Dems wish to persuade an unimpressed public that they are indeed up to the task of supplanting their Republican counterparts as the majority party, they would do well to at least pretend that they do not countenance boorishness (let alone criminality) in their membership.