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Illo: Peter Arkle.
The other day, driving to the local home center for some mulch and fertilizer, I absolutely solved the problem of gun proliferation in America once and for all. This was the morning after the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colo., and so I guess the subject was on my mind. When the traffic light turned green, I stepped on the gas and was nearly broadsided by a speeding Cockasaurus, running the red light going the other way.
For all the benefits of living in the countryside—nature, sunrises, the singing of birds—the greatest drawback is the dreaded Cockasaurus. I’m certain you’ve run into a few of them yourself; the roads lately are filled with them—Chevys, Fords, GMCs, pickups mostly, with oversized off-road tires, raised suspensions and open exhausts, driven by abject failures who attempt to soothe the degradation of their every waking moment by feeling “bigger” than everyone else on the road. The Cockasaurus, like many of nature’s creatures, has some common markings: vaguely-racist anti-Obama decals, one praising Jesus Christ, a hilarious picture of Calvin urinating on something and, more often than not, a bumper sticker proudly declaring the driver’s love for guns: I Heart Guns, or I Heart Assault Rifles, or My Other Auto is a 9MM, or If You Can Read This, You’re in Range! This particular Cockasaurus, the one that nearly ended my life, sported the following message etched beneath a black silhouette of an automatic rifle in a sort of Comic Sans typeface:
Gun control means using two hands!
I should state at the outset, before absolutely solving the problem of gun proliferation in America, that I have nothing against guns. Nobody distrusts the human animal more than I, so you don’t have to convince me of the need for personal protection. This is a somber reality, however: man’s inhumanity to man and our concomitant need to defend ourselves from one another is a wretched, depressing fact of life, not one to be celebrated or enjoyed. And that’s my problem with gun people: they seem rather thrilled to be having guns. To be Gun Owners. To have more guns, bigger guns, guns in their cars, guns in their homes, guns in their pants. It isn’t about the unfortunate reality that men prey upon other men—it’s about … something else. But what?
I leaned on my horn as the Cockasaurus went by, and in response, his engine grunted, his tires thrust forward and his tailpipe ejaculated a thick load of exhaust.
That’s when I realized—this swaggering, Dirty Harry–esque gun ownership isn’t about safety or protection or hunting or freedom or the Second Amendment. It’s about cock. More specifically, it’s about little cock.
Gun control means using two hands? That’s about cock.
I don’t retreat, I just reload? Cock.
They can have my gun when they pry it out of some liberal’s cold puckered ass?
Way cock.
And so it occurred to me, driving behind this particular Cockasaurus the morning after 12 people were killed and 58 injured in a movie theater in Colorado, that maybe the answer wasn’t more gun laws, but some other law. Because that’s what I’d been reading all morning: that while most everyone agreed we needed new gun laws, they also agreed it was politically impossible to get any new gun laws passed.
So here’s my idea: if we can’t federally mandate new gun laws, I say we pass a federal law that all American males over 18, without prejudice or exception, be required to shave the base of their cocks. Shaving the base of one’s cock is a time-honored, porno-tested method of making one’s penis appear larger than it really is. Will this rid the country of guns? No. And it shouldn’t. But I am convinced it will rid gun-owners of the need for ever bigger, more powerful “weapons,” and their insistence on shoving those compensatory bigger guns down our gagging, metaphoric throats.
Listen, I’m no Pollyanna; as bipartisan a concept as I believe this is, I know that it’s an election year, and passing my Cock-Shaving Bill isn’t politically feasible just yet, but I’d like to at least get the idea out there, perhaps start an online petition. The bumper stickers write themselves:
You can have my gun when I stop using it to overcompensate for my inadequate penis.
Guns don’t kill people; I have a small dick.
Don’t disarm the dicks; shave them.
It’s a start. Come up with your own. Get organized.
The Cockasaurus pulled into the home center and parked, and the driver jumped out. He pulled his jeans up over his beer belly and waddled over to look at one of the mowers on display outside the door.
The biggest mower there.
The biggest mower I had ever seen.
It was bigger than my car.
“Morning,” he said to me as I walked by.
It was nearly 1,000 dollars more than any other mower there, and for a moment, just for a moment, I felt bad for him.
How much money will he waste, I wondered, before he just shells out for a Mach Three razor? How many people have to die before this man shaves his cock?
“Morning,” I replied.
editorial@observer.com