According to the Washington Post, 99.99% of handguns are not used to kill anyone. Of the estimated 65,000,000 handguns owned, 64,988,000 of them didn't spring to life or emit evil mind control rays. The devices sound extraordinarily safe, compared to "weapons of mass destruction" like the Sport Utility Vehicle, cigarette, or McDonald's cheeseburger.

So you can imagine my surprise that the Post editorial staff (in an article entitled "Killing Made Easy") called for a totalitarian ban of the relatively safe devices.

There's an obvious thread here that members of Congress choose not to see: The all-too-free flow of handguns, a warped way of life that cows presidents and members of Congress who ought to recognize that the availability of handguns is murderous. The problem is that Americans own 65 million handguns and the only effective safety measure would be a ban on these made-for-murder weapons. As writer Jenny Price noted in a Dec. 25 op-ed in The Post, only 160 of the 12,000 guns used to kill people every year are employed in legitimate self-defense; guns in the home are used seven times more often for homicide than for self-defense.

That's a staggering statistic. But if you look at the number of people killed each year by automobiles, I bet you'll find only a small fraction of them were jusifiably mowed down by other drivers. Maybe there's something to that, or maybe it's just bullshit. You decide.

(Via Say Uncle)