I know what! Let's hire some of them crack TSA folks to secure the campuses!

And the madness continues. Thanks to Jim Henley for pointing out that E.J Dionne essentially makes the argument that we could learn a lot from the Transportation Security Administration when it comes to making college campuses safer. Dionne, later in his column:

Okay, let's be specific. What would the NRA's objection be to a law requiring gun dealers to establish whether a potential buyer is a student and, if so, to inform (or even get permission from) the student's high school or college before any weapons could be sold? What about raising the minimum age for purchasing a gun to 25 or 30? Why not renew the ban on the sale of assault weapons?

Well, golly, E.J., I can't speak for the NRA (I'm not even a member), but, um, oh, let's see... might the objection be something along the lines of "it's none of their #$%&@! business"? Isn't access to or ownership of a weapon outside the college (or, yes, even high school) campus a matter completely separate from the question of bringing that weapon on campus? Shall we further permit the schools to subject twenty-nine year old graduate students to polygraph tests to see if they know of anywhere else where they might get their hands on some guns like, oh, say, their parents' home?

Or perhaps we should turn this around. Shouldn't we have to seek permission from the TSA first before buying a gun or shouldn't the TSA at least get to know we own one? I mean, after all, we might just want to fly somewhere someday, and I'm sure the TSA will be reasonable, efficient and even-handed about such things, especially based on its performance to date.

But why stop there? Young people don't all go to college. Some of them work in office building and factories filled with other people arguably at risk from a shooting spree every minute of the working day. Shouldn't employers have the right to know about or veto their young employees' ownership of guns, too? And movie theaters and restaurants and concert halls, and shopping malls -- my gawd, the shopping malls! -- they're filled with potential victims, too. Shouldn't the Olive Garden and T.G.I. Friday's and Abercrombie & Fitch get some sort of notice or veto rights, too?

I don't suppose it would do a whit of good to point out to Dionne that the assault weapon ban is also completely irrelevant to the Virginia Tech shootings. Such weapons might someday somewhere else be used for such purposes and that, I am sure, suffices for Dionne to draw the connection.

Finally, Dionne writes, "Our country is a laughingstock on the rest of the planet because of our devotion to unlimited gun rights."

I know I've had that experience myself. I land in France or drive into Canada and I find myself incessantly barraged by torrents of laughter and cat calls of "Ho ho ho, you silly Americans and your devotion to unlimited gun rights, you foolish people, you!" I tell you, it makes ordering dinner so unpleasant I almost wish I had a handgun on me right then and there!

What nonsense. Does Dionne know a single person genuinely "devoted to unlimited gun rights," taking that phrase literally? But, hey, what are a few obvious factual misrepresentations, a general obliviousness or indifference to the meaning of words or the genuine risibility of new, shoot-from-the-hip gun restriction ideas if it means the rest of the planet will stop laughing at us?