As I write this we’re up to 131 mass shootings since the first of the year. If like me you’re bad at math, that’s 131 in 87 days. … and it’s not even 10 am, so that number will likely go up before I finish this rant … which is part of that same sick ritual.

Of all the daily rituals of American life is there one sicker and sadder than the post-mass shooting reaction cycle? The answer is, “no.”

We all know the basics. There’s overwhelming public support for the very … very … basics. Like the “red flag” laws to take handguns, rifles, bazookas, whatever away from the guy in your neighborhood out naked in the street screaming at squirrels. And for background checks before the sketchy dude at your local “gun show” hands over a machine gun to an 18 year-old who can’t spell his own name. Basic stuff.

But nothing changes. Or I should say nothing changes that might mitigate the constant slaughter. In fact, the only real change is in states with deeply craven, insecure Republican politicians who feel obligated to produce new and less restrictive “gun rights” every legislative session. That naked guy waving a gun at squirrels? Let’s enhance his Second Amendment right to tote his machine gun into the Dollar General and sue anyone who says he can’t. That folks is “freedom.”

Republicans, less terrified these days of the imploded-by-their-own-scandals NRA than they are of their gun obsessed “base”, most if not all of whom are MAGA-nauts, ritually claim “there’s nothing we can do”. And with more guns floating around the country than people, they have something of a point. The only thing that would truly reduce the slaughter(s)-of-the-day is confiscating, mmm, 330 to 340 million guns, which is never going to happen.

But … I have always had my “to do” list for at least obstructing the ever-increasing rate of these obscenities.

A: Federal legislation overriding any and all state laws — here’s looking at you Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginny, etc — requiring permitting, licensing and proof of insurance for all firearms in your possession. If the day ever comes when the USA gets Minnesota-like liberal control of the White House and Congress … this should be Job #1.

B: Market-based insurance for every type of gun. Let State Farm and Liberty Mutual assess the risk of naked squirrel guy owning an AR-15. Likewise the slightly twitchy, macho “hunter” dude regaling his bar buddes about the 28 guns he’s got prepped and ready back at his trailer. An annual $1000 bill for every Glock he packs to the church picnic might slow him down … a bit.

C: A federal tax on ammunition. There’s plenty wrong everywhere, but when some numbskull teenager working part time at Taco Bell can afford 3000 rounds of ammo for his combat rifle, we’ve moved deep into “whacked”-land. How does $10 a bullet sound?

D: Constant cultural ridicule of the gun obsessed. I don’t know about you but in my conversations with (clearly single issue) gun “enthusiasts”, the sexual over-compensation of their gun ownership/brandishing positively oozes from their pores. The guys (95% being male, with easily 30% checking the all the markers for incel status) stockpiling weapons and ammo and living in a perpetual bubble of “threat assessment” have plainly lost control over a fundamental facet of human psychology. Their guns have replaced something they’ve lost, or can’t get up any longer.

If they weren’t armed and dangerous I’d let it slide. But given their personal armory and their influence over chickenshit Republican politicians, they are the richest, ripest targets for masculinity-lacerating ridicule — from late night comics, bloggers, Twitter obsessives and (god forbid!) mainstream editorial writers,. Lay it on. Thick and heavy. And keep it coming. Identify them as the impotent fools they are. Deprive them of the macho high they get from “open carry.”

Being a former Catholic I’m a big believer in the power of shame, and America’s gun-obsessed don’t get near enough of it.