Hey NRA, protect your interests

I was visiting my uncle, an avid hunter, when I came across an advertising insert for a gun shop. I've been in the market for a nice handgun for some time since I want the ability to kill any uninvited guests who show up in my house at 3 a.m. Hey, if someone breaks into MY home to steal MY Sony Playstation, he or she deserves to have his or her brains splattered all over the walls. It says so right there in the Constitution.\nI'm just kidding -- I'd aim for the legs.\nAnyway, I browsed the insert and was shocked and amazed to find the gun I wanted, a stainless steel .40 caliber Smith & Wesson with black grips, for the bargain basement price of $209, used of course. Then, I noticed the pages were filled with other used S&W pistols for hundreds of dollars off! \nI asked my uncle what was going on, and he told me gun owners were turning in their S&Ws in droves because the National Rifle Association has instituted an unofficial national boycott on the company (It's an official boycott if you ask U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Springfield, Mass., is the base of operations for S&W).\nWhy is the NRA boycotting S&W? Well, the company had the audacity last year to make an agreement with the federal government to help keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals and make them safer for everyone to use.\nI know what you're thinking: you start to make guns safe, and pretty soon the hippies in Washington will start wiping their rear ends with copies of the Second Amendment. We'll be on that slippery slope and, pretty soon, high schoolers with death wishes won't be filled with anti-school spirit and shoot up the old alma mater.\nWell, count me out, Moses, because the agreement will have absolutely no effect on me. I have to pass a background check if I want to buy an S&W at a gun show? Someone only should own something with so much potential to kill other human beings only if he or she is a responsible adult. I don't believe it's asking too much to make sure that someone isn't a criminal or escaped lunatic, especially since I am neither. Well, I'm not escaped. \nI can only purchase one gun every 14 days? In homage to President George W. Bush, I was thinking about reliving some of the glory days under Ronald Reagan and re-enacting the invasion of Grenada, but it was only a thought.\nMy gun won't be able to fire without a clip in it? I have to think about this one. Whenever I am in a gunfight, I have this nasty habit of accidentally hitting the clip release, and the thing falls out. I also won't be able to make anyone I murder look like they were "cleaning" their gun when it "accidentally" went off. Sometimes you just have to take what life gives you.\nMy gun will have an internal lock in it that I can't remove? Let me see, I'm smart enough to operate a handgun, but can I remember how to unlock it before I fire?\nI know how to operate the safety. Does that help? I suppose I also won't be able to perform any more post-natal abortions for the kinfolk when I let their kids "find" my gun while they play in the backyard with their new Thunderchu Pokemon. \nI know I am being black-heartedly flippant, but how else can I be in the face of such insanity? I cannot believe the NRA is ignorant to all the gun violence happening in this country. That Second Amendment slope is slippery because it's covered in the blood of innocents.\nIf one child can be saved by these precautions they so adamantly oppose, then NRA members should suck it up and accept a little bit of inconvenience. In fact, they should embrace the precautions because every accident involving children and every school shooting makes their position look even more ludicrous.\nOf course, these measures won't stop gun violence in America, but they will help. If the NRA doesn't like them, maybe instead of boycotting, they should come up with practical solutions, and taking Junior outside to the backyard to plink some cans with a .22 isn't enough.\nNo one wants to take guns away from decent, law-abiding adults. Everyone wants to take guns away from children and criminals. These measures try to do that in a sensible way that does not take guns away from NRA members.\nOn second thought, maybe we shouldn't use rationality and common decency. I want every "Proud American" and militia member with an M60 and 10,000 rounds of ammunition under the bed to boycott S&W until the price of that .40 cal drops to around $150. Then maybe, I can afford one, gunlocks, background checks and all.