Imagine If All Bars Or Abortion Clinics Were Shut Down For Four Days

Snowflakes in Hell points me to this astonishingly stupid editorial in the August 24, 2007 Philadelphia Daily-News:

MY NAME IS JOE. I'M A GUN ADDICT.

FOUR-DAY GUN SALE SHUTDOWN PUTS SOME IN TIZZY

LOOK AT THEM.
Shaking. Sweating. Pacing.
Unable to concentrate. Unable to focus on anything other than . . . their next gun buy.
Pennsylvania's gun addicts are already going through withdrawal, as the planned four-day halt on gun sales to allow the state to update its computerized background checks grows closer.
The Pennsylvania Instant Check System is used by gun store owners to do state and federally required criminal background checks on potential customers. It will be closed for upgrading from 6 p.m. Sept. 2 to noon Sept. 6. That means that no guns can be sold.
Gun store owners are hot. The shutdown coincides with the beginning of the early dove and goose hunting season, a popular time - at least in some parts of the state -for gun sales.
One Harrisburg lawmaker, Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, is also in a snit. He's claming that this is an attempt by Philadelphia liberals to limit the rights of gun owners.
The outcry has us a little worried about just how stable some of these gun addicts are. We've seen actual junkies more behaved than this when they hear they can't get their hands on their stuff.
But four lousy days with no guns? And with plenty of warning so those who want to buy new hunting rifles can plan ahead?

Pretty obviously, any hunter who is aware of this will take care of purchases ahead of time. The problem is that there are a fair number of hunters who are going to be surprised--and every gun store in the state is going to twiddling their thumbs for four days. But the logic just gets worse:

Instead of sitting around moping, why not take a field trip? Ride through some of the state's larger cities and their suburban towns, where gun violence has grown. Let's call it a reality check. Some of these guns used to kill are on the street, thanks to straw purchasers who patronize the state's gun stores, and then sell the guns illegally.

The hunting weapons, with a few exceptions, aren't the cause of the violence in Philly. It's largely handguns. Maybe they should ask why it is that the hunting parts of Pennsylvania--which are awash in guns and Republicans--don't have anywhere near the problem with murder that Philly and cities with the misfortune to be too close to Philly have? Hint: it's the culture, and the unwillingness to send murderers away, not the guns.