In Random Praise of Rick Moranis

Gene Hackman. Jack Nicholson. Sean Connery. These are all giants of cinematic acting, legends in their own time. Yet they all retired years ago, so quietly that no one noticed that one day they simply stopped making movies.

Rick Moranis also retired years ago, also quietly. But people noticed.

Offers for comedy films continue to pour in to Moranis's inbox. Fans still clamor for the next Moranis film years after it should have become obvious that he doesn't do that anymore. And when Columbia Pictures reunited the original Ghostbusters cast to make cameos in the remake, Moranis was the one hold-out -- despite a reportedly hefty financial offer.

Moranis first made his mark as a new addition to the cast of SCTV. He was the only cast member to not first rise through the ranks of the live Second City stage show. (He did later make one guest appearance in Second City, appearing alongside his SCTV cast mates.) As Dave Thomas and others explain in Thomas's book The Making of "SCTV," Moranis was a breath of fresh air to his cast mates. Whereas they had been suffering from creative fatigue towards the end of the previous season, the addition of Moranis motivated everyone to up their game.

Moranis's best known work with SCTV is by far his role as Bob McKenzie, one half of the famous McKenzie Brothers. As Bob and Doug McKenzie, Moranis and Thomas released music albums, guest-starred in other shows, made commercials, and even acted in other roles. (The animated Brother Bear includes characters allegedly voiced by Bob and Doug McKenzie -- fictional characters played by Moranis and Thomas!) The McKenzie Brothers even starred in their own movie, the modern-day cult classic Strange Brew -- which was directed and written by Moranis and Thomas themselves.

But if the McKenzie Brothers is Moranis's best known and best loved legacy from SCTV, it's not actually his best work. Like his co-stars, Moranis excelled at both creating his own original characters, and mimicking well-known celebrities. In the latter category, Moranis's best work is as Woody Allen. Many people do impressions of Woody Allen, of course, and to be honest, almost all of those impressions are pretty good. Heck, even I do a decent Woody Allen impression. But when he wants to be, Moranis is astoundingly like Woody Allen. His impression is so good that he even convinces you that he looks like Woody Allen, when in actuality, their faces are very different. But Moranis's impression is so amazing that, with nothing more than mussed hair, Allenesque glasses, and a plaid shirt, he makes you feel like he's indistinguishable from the real thing. If Moranis ever does come out of retirement (and look, here I am, falling into the same trap as so many of his other fans do), I hope it's to play Woody Allen in a comical biopic.

Moranis's movie work, like pretty much everyone else's, has admittedly been hit or miss. He is best known as the bumbling, nerdy accountant and lawyer Louis Tully in Ghostbusters and the bumbling, nerdy villain Lord Dark Helmet in Spaceballs. He is, in fact, so good in these roles that someone familiar only with his best known work might assume he's only good as bumbling, nerdy characters, although the rest of his work, especially SCTV, proves that his range is actually quite astounding. Personally, my favorite Moranis performance in the movies is his role as Seymour Krellborn, a floral assistant best described as . . . . well, okay, as bumbling and nerdy. But hey, Moranis sings his own songs in the movie, and they're real show-stoppers. Moranis has always been an exceptional talent. He may not be dead, but he's been absent from the public eye for quite a while now. He is missed.

online review: To Boldly Go, Part I

There's a difference between ending and merely stopping. The Fugitive, the first TV series to ever produce a deliberately constructed series finale, had a proper ending. The original Star Trek, by contrast, merely stopped. You kept watching the original broadcasts until, one day, there were no more new Star Trek episodes. There was absolutely nothing about the last produced episode, "Turnabout Intruder," that, either narratively or thematically, felt like a proper farewell to the show. This was especially jarring for audience members who had taken to heart that the U.S.S. Enterprise was on a "five year mission," according to its opening narration, while the series itself lasted only three years.

Since then, as we all know, of course, Star Trek has become not just a franchise, but a phenomenon. Movies, novelizations, revivals, and spin-offs abound. But apart from all the official releases, two online amateur filmmakers, working on two different fan-film projects, set out to depict what might have happened to the Enterprise and her gallant crew during the two remaining years of their five year mission.

The first of these to appear was James Cawley's online series Star Trek: New Voyages*, which, with multiple celebrity guests and even a Hugo nomination (a big deal in science fiction), is certainly the better known of the two productions. Previous entries of this very blog have addressed and even praised New Voyages. Both New Voyages and Star Trek Continues are astounding in how exactlly they nail the look, sound, and general feel of the costumes, sets, sound effects, etc. You really do feel like you're watching new episodes of the original 60s Star Trek -- if, of course, you're able to get past the idea of new actors playing the familiar roles.

*The show was briefly re-branded as Star Trek: Phase II, in honor of Paramount's aborted TV spin-off of the 70s that never made it to production, but is still better known as "New Voyages."

I'd argue that the second series to appear, Vic Mignogna's online series Star Trek Continues, is the better of the two shows. Some people would disagree with that assessment, and that's fine, everyone's entitled to an opinion. And lord knows I'd never disparage Cawley's  many impressive achievements with New Voyages. But Star Trek Continues has two distinct advantages of New Voyages. First is the role of Captain Kirk. Both Cawley and Mignogna cast themselves in the lead role. As Kirk, Cawley nails the machismo aspect of the role, but his lighter moments have mixed results, sometimes effective, sometimes awkward. The decidedly Elvis-like hairdo he sports (Cawley is an Elvis impersonator in his day job) is distractingly un-Kirk-like.

Mignogna, by contrast, nails every aspect of Kirk. It's really something to behold, if you're familiar with William Shatner in the role. It makes you think: Many, many comedians, both famous (Jim Carrey, Kevin Pollak, etc.) and obscure, have made fun of Shatner's admittedly melodramatic style of acting, but in over-emphasizing that one aspect of his performance, they're less mimickry and more grotesquerie. Mignogna, on the other hand, doesn't do an impression, exactly -- or if it does count as an impression, it's the best damn impression of anybody I've ever seen. Mignogna's performance as Kirk strongly implies to me that Mignogna himself learned to act by studying Shatner in the role. Every mannerism, every nuance is decidedly Shatneresque, yet the performance as a whole doesn't come across as mockery. The contrast is striking: Cawley, with a constant hint of a wink to the audience, is pretending to be Kirk, like a kid on a playground. Mignogna is acting in the role of Kirk -- and the result is a much more effective suspension of disbelief.

The second advantage Star Trek Continues has over its sister show is the writing. Whereas the writing of New Voyages is hit-or-miss -- and again, at least one of my earlier blog entries addressed this -- Star Trek Continues has a uniformly high quality of writing. Every episode is a winner.

Which brings me to the most recent episode, "To Boldly Go, Part I." Because of recent decisions by Paramount's legal department, the two-part "To Boldly Go" will be the very last episode of Star Trek Continues -- which, true to the show's original ambition, the writers are treating as if it's a series finale to the original show as well. And as is often the case with the best series finales, Star Trek Continues is ending by taking a look back to its beginnings. There's always something satisfying about this approach to series finales. Richard Kimble finally confronts the One-Armed Man in The Fugitive, Buffy finally enters the Hellmouth that was introduced in the pilot episode of The Vampire Slayer, Captain Picard finally learns the verdict of the trial that Q launched at the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and so on. Writers like to use their last episode to look back on the first so often, because it so often works so wonderfully.

In "Where No Man has Gone Before," Captain Kirk's very first episode of Star Trek, originally aired back in 1966, the Enterprise tried to penetrate the mysterious energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy. In the process, two crew members -- including Kirk's best friend, Lt. Gary Mitchell -- were zapped with some kind of weird energy, giving them extraordinary mental and physical capabilities, including but not limited to telekinesis and telepathy. Absolute power corrupted absolutely, and as Mitchell's powers increased, he decided to launch a grand tradition of destroying the Enterprise. Kirk barely escaped with his life.

Now, five years later in story time (or 51 years later in real time), Kirk discovers that Starfleet has been secretly using the Galactic Barrier's mysterious energies to breed a small band of "espers," similarly empowered people with abilities identical to those of Gary Mitchell. Before long, Kirk and the Enterprise are drawn into a conflict between the espers and the Romulans. Kirk has to sort out who are the bad guys, who are the victims, and which of the two threats is the deadlier. Should he team up with one faction to defeat the other?

"To Boldly Go" continues the online show's tradition of tying up loose ends left behind by the first show. In addition to the various "whatever happened to this charactor or that character" questions Star Trek Continues has answered, the show has also addressed everything from what happened in the mirror universe (the "evil Enterprise crew" episode) after the end of "Mirror, Mirror," to the question of how Kirk can fall so madly in love so often, and still find meaning in each new romance.

Satisfyingly, "To Boldly Go, Part I" really dips into the "tying up loose ends from the original series" well. In addition to the return of the galactic barrier/ telepath storyline from "Where No Man has Gone Before," we get the return of the female Romulan commander from "The Enterprise Incident." We even get an in-story explanation for the writers' mistake in the 60s when they inadvertantly changed Kirk's middle initial from R to T. But all of this would be almost meaningless if the story wasn't good as well. It is. "To Boldly Go, Part 1" leaves you wanting more. I'll be excited when Part 2 comes out. But at the same time, sad to see this wonderful show end.

random movie review: The Forlorned

Dad and I used to joke about one aspect of living in a haunted house that movies always, always overlook: Beyond the fear, living in a haunted house would be annoying as hell. Think about all the cliches of such movies: slamming doors, unexplained voices, appliances turning on by themselves, etc. The movies treat such phenomena as scary, and they would be, but after a while, it would be like, "the dishes have moved by themselves when I wasn't looking again, damn, I just put them away!"

The makers of The Forlorned -- an independent film, with a cast of unknowns and an obviously low budget -- are the first to understand just how frustrating living in a haunted house would be. As a horror film, it's just competent enough to hold your interest, nothing more. But as a comedy, it gets a lot of mileage out of the skilled performance of Colton Christensen as Thomas Doherty, the young man who moves into the house. Sadly, I predict that Christensen will never become famous, but that's more due to how the film industry works than any lack of talent. Christensen's facial expressions -- believable and honest as the best actors in Hollywood -- tell more with a single look than some actors need a page of dialogue to express.

In the movie, Tom Doherty has accepted the job of caretaker of a lighthouse and the nearby caretaker's house on a deserted island off the coast of a small town somewhere in New England. Counting the living quarters in the lighthouse itself, that gives Tom the choice of two buildings to live in, rent-free, on the condition that he devote pretty much all of his time to fixing the buildings up, single-handedly.

The first scene beautifully sets up the dual tone of the movie. It's a scene that's been used in countless horror films of the past: The grizzled old townsman insists he doesn't believe in ghosts but repeatedly adds variations of "but then again . . ."

He then tells Tom the history of the property, and, of course, it's a history rife with death, starting with a battle in the War of 1812 right off the coast, when the island was used as the burial ground for those killed in combat. After that, residents of the property have died from heart attack, murder, and suicide. The previous caretaker "died in that chair right there!" the old man helpfully tells the increasingly creeped-out Tom. Other island residents have disappeared or gone insane, and now the townspeople avoid the island out of a superstitious dread.

All of this is pretty par for the course for haunted house movies, but the capper is when, after he has told Tom this long litany of loss, tragedy, madness, and murder, and emphasizes that Tom will be the only person living on the entire island, the old man ends his speech with a light-hearted "well, guess I better be going!" and Tom gives him a hilariously terrified, wholly believable look like, "you have got to be kidding me!"

What follows isn't very distinguished as horror -- all the cliches are present, done decently, no better, no worse -- but for my wife and me, what worked great was the comedy of watching Tom grow increasingly frustrated by the countless inconveniences that come with living in a haunted house. It gradually becomes clear that the previous residents who went mad probably didn't do so out of fear, but out of frustration.

The key to this aspect of the film working so well is Christensen's performance as Tom. He never over-reacts, but his eyes are indeed very expressive, and he's not afraid to play his character's growing fear and frustration for laughs.

The Forlorned is not a great movie by any means -- at times it's creepy, but at other times, the low budget does negatively impact the effectiveness of the scenes intended to be scary -- but as a source of unexpected (intentional) comedy, it really is quite enjoyable.

retro review: The Incredible Hulk

These days, it seems that nearly half of the movies entering theaters are somehow tied in with the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" (and that's coming from someone who likes those movies!). So, by convoluted reasoning that makes complete sense in my mind but is not  quite logical enough to be coherently stated out loud, it seems only fitting to take some time to take a look back at a much earlier cinematic interpretation, Kenneth Johnson's 1977 TV movie and television series pilot, The Incredible Hulk. Depending on your age and your range of interests, the mere mention of the show will spark fond nostalgia, vague memories, or, for the millennials, the exclamation, "they had TV back in the seventies?!!?"

As a character -- whether in the comics, on TV, or in the movies -- the Incredible Hulk has always been an odd fit in the comics canon, the proverbial square peg in the round holes reserved for the roster of superheroes. His most commonly depicted interpretation is that of a mindless beast, "driven by rage," as the TV show narrator tells us in the intro of every episode. As the involuntary alter ego of brilliant scientist David Banner*, the Hulk is, in many ways, less like a traditional superhero, and much more like a werewolf -- a comparison that at first may seem wonky, but seems more apt the more you think about it. (Stephen King assumes the comparison as axiomatic in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre.)

*Usually "Bruce Banner," but "David Banner" in the 70s TV movies and television program

Thus, you didn't have to be a comic book or superhero fan to enjoy the 70s Incredible Hulk, whose format was brilliantly simple in its appeal to hook viewers: Each episode of the series devotes most of its screen time to the adventures of Banner, a brilliant man who never lets the genius go to his head, a man who is charming and kind-hearted, but nevertheless forced by circumstance into desperate loneliness. Give Banner just enough story in each episode to establish that maybe, just maybe, he can find happiness in his new life (whether that happiness is friendship, romance, a cure for his illness, whatever) before circumstances beyond his control trigger his transformation into the Hulk, and chaos ensues, forcing him to abandon his latest "new life" in search of another. Ya got your serious drama for viewers who like an intelligent story, and ya got your action adventure scenes for people who enjoy watching mindless mayhem, and just want to see the Hulk smash. If you're like me, the kind of person who enjoys both modes, then this show surpasses "kinda good I guess" to "pretty damn cool."

But back to the TV movie that started it all: The movie starts unpromisingly, with an introductory, silent montage depicting the happy marriage between David and Laura Banner. This scene effectively conveys its intended message, but goes on far too long, causing your attention to wander to what might be good for dinner tomorrow night. Not a good start.

Then the seemingly endless montage of marital bliss segues into a nightmarish scenario, depicting the first in a series of radically life-changing events in David Banner's life: a car accident in which David is flung from the car, but into a meadow of soft grass, and thus is unharmed. The car flips, severely injuring Laura and trapping her inside. David tries to get the door open, but to no avail, and Laura dies before help can arrive.

That's all the first scene, and at this point, not a single word of dialogue has been spoken. Once dialogue does begin, we quickly learn a lot about what David's been up to since his wife's death: He's now studying human biological reaction to danger and stress, trying to figure out why some people in such situations temporarily exhibit extraordinary capabilities -- imperviousness to pain, increased strength, etc. -- while others don't. Meanwhile, David's got an interesting emotional dichotomy going on, still grieving for his wife, but also enjoying a healthy, semi-flirtatious friendship-bordering-on-romance with his research partner, Doctor Elaina Marks (Susan Sullivan). David and Elaina are equals in every way: brilliant, charming, good-humored, kind-hearted, and generally made for each other, if it wasn't for David's grief for his wife getting in the way.

The movie, directed and written by Kenneth Johnson, is impressively efficient in its ability to clearly and quickly convey all of this information without ever resorting to outright exposition. We never get a scene where somebody says something like, "that Dr. Marks, wow, she sure is a catch, too bad you're too blinded by grief to see it, Doc!" Johnson clearly agrees with famed screenwriting instructor Robert McKee, that drama is much more effective as "show the audience" rather than "tell the audience."

At this point, you're either already hooked into the story, or you're distracted by just how very seventies it all is. Bell bottom jeans abound, and at one point, you realize that "holy cow, even the science lab has red velvet carpeting on its Brady Bunch style stairs!"

Two separate incidents spur David's research to the next level: First, one of the interview subjects explains how her incident of temporarily superhuman strength was spurred on by a car accident not similar, but identical to the one in which David lost his wife. The only difference is that while David was unable to summon the strength to pull his wife from the wreckage, the woman being interviewed was able to somehow lift her car up just long enough for her young son to escape. David's wife died, the kid in the other accident lived, and at first, David and Elaina are baffled as to what the variable could be.

Ah, but then a scientist from another part of the lab makes a passing reference to sun spots, and David has his "eureka" moment: gamma radiation! Sure enough, David learns that all of the events of seemingly superhuman ability coincided with spikes in gamma radiation in the atmosphere, while his own car accident occurred at a time of unusually low gamma activity.

At this point, David, an otherwise smart man, does perhaps the stupidest and certainly most regrettable thing in his entire life: Without telling anyone, he tests his theory by dosing himself with gamma radiation. Later dialogue repeatedly characterizes this decision as an "accident" because David, thinking that the maximum exposure was 300,000 units, cranked it to the max, not knowing until later that the machine had been upgraded, and he'd actually dosed himself with two million units. I understand the writer's intention here, attempting to re-frame the lab incident as an "accident" to mitigate David's culpability in his experiment gone awry, but come on! The misunderstanding over the machine's settings doesn't change the fact that the guy intentionally exposed himself to massive doses of radiation basically just out of curiosity.

But narratively, the point is that now, after being exposed to unprecedented levels of gamma radiation, David Banner has essentially become the Hulk. Under normal conditions, he's still a normal human being, but make him angry, and you trigger a fantastic transformation that turns David into a green, supernaturally strong, mindless muscle-man whose default setting is a loss of temper that results in pretty much everything in the vicinity getting smashed to pieces.

A couple of plot points to consider: In the series that followed this movie, David would routinely be victimized by bullies and criminals, triggering his transformation into the Hulk, but no matter how mad the Hulk got, he never hurt anybody too seriously. Inanimate objects would get smashed to smithereens, but any time the Hulk chose to take his considerable anger out on a person, the worst he'd ever do is pick 'em up by the collar and toss them to the other side of the room. Without this movie as a narrative back-drop, that tendency always comes across as self-censorship, as if the the producers wanted to avoid severe violence and thus keep the show family friendly, even at the expense of logical consistency with the constantly stated fact that "the creature is driven by rage."

But hold on! This pilot movie addresses that seeming inconsistency quite bluntly. When David expresses fear that he'll hurt or kill somebody next time he turns into the Hulk, Dr. Marks insists that he's wrong, that the altered mental state that is the Hulk is no different from similar altered mental states like hypnosis: You can't hypnotize somebody out of their moral framework. If a "normal" David Banner would never kill somebody, then neither would a hypnotized David Banner, and by extension, Dr. Marks argues, neither would the Hulk. Dr. Marks points out that the Hulk's very first confrontation with a human being confirms her theory: A hunter shoots the Hulk in the arm, and even though this only further angers the Hulk, all the Hulk does in response is throw the guy into a nearby lake.

Another plot point to consider: the character of Jack McGee (Jack Colvin), the reporter who quickly becomes obsessed with proving the existence of the Hulk. People who remember Mr. McGee from the TV series probably remember him as the recurring thorn in David's side. Much like Richard Kimble in The Fugitive, David wandered the nation, constantly coming up with new identities to live new lives, afraid that someone would find out his real identity. But David's transformations into the Hulk wasn't always the reason David kept having to move on; half the time, it's because McGee would show up.

Even before David's first transformation into the Hulk, McGee is established as annoying and persistent, and the movie adds a couple of scenes that make him seem even more slimy: First, when McGee accidentally knocks over a jug of chemicals, which directly leads to the fire that kills Elaina Marks (ironically, no one, not even McGee himself, ever learns that he's responsible for the tragedy), and later again, when the damn weasel has the audacity to show up for the funerals of Elaina and also David, whom everyone believes to have been killed in the explosion.

Here's my take on Jack McGee: He's not a bad guy. Yes, his intrepid search for the Hulk would later prove maddeningly inconvenient for David, but the story he's pursuing really is news of Pulitzer caliber. And the moment that really illustrates that his slimeball act is just a cover is at the exact moment of the explosion that kills Elaina Marks and, as far as everyone thinks, also kills David Banner: McGee calls out to David in obviously sincere concern. He wants to help; he just can't. That's a layer of characterization that makes Mr. McGee's later appearances more morally complex. If The Fugitive's Richard Kimble is a close analogue to The Hulk's David Banner, then Mr. McGee is surely analogous to Lt. Gerard. Gerard and McGee tend to make our heroes miserable, but in any other story, they'd be the good guys.

One final observation: the Hulk himself takes some getting used to if you've become accustomed to the CGI versions of the character featured in 21st century movies. CGI technology didn't exist back then, and even by 70s tech standards, The Incredible Hulk was relatively low budget. Simply put, the producers had to make do with the technology available at the time. As a result, the Hulk is basically a body-painted, lumbering body-builder of questionable acting merit. Within the context of the series and its era, it totally works, but if you can't get past comparing him with the slicker visuals of today's cinema, Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk will probably be laughable. There's no right or wrong reaction here, either one is understandable.

My issues with pro-gun rights arguments . . .

After the Newtown tragedy, I angrily and publicly opined that people who champion the Second Amendment over gun regulation care more about their own rights than about human life. And to be honest . . . I still stand by that view. But I also acknowledge that although many right-wingers are much more likely to indulge in name-calling than engage in meaningful dialogue, there are also people on both sides of the issue with a sincere desire to discuss the issues. And so, with that goal in mind, I'd like to use this blog to get some of the basics out of the way. I will now present my own responses to the most commonly heard pro-gun arguments. If you think I'm wrong or have overlooked something, please, please tell me so (in a civil manner).

1. "But the Second Amendment says . . ."

Let me stop you right there, because I agree with you, at least on the most basic level. Yes, the Second Amendment does indeed say " the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," and I will agree that the text seems pretty clear-cut. I'd also argue that no single law in the United States Constitution has been so directly responsible for so much death and destruction. Seriously, how many deaths can you list because somebody's right to free speech, for example, was protected? But okay, the law's the law. And here's where my anger comes through, because my only response is the one mentioned above. Because every single person who bases their pro-gun arguments on the Second Amendment really has emphasized in their arguments their own rights rather than the countless lost lives of innocents. "Oh, a dozen people just got killed? Yeah, I guess that's sad. Wait, you want me to submit to a background check before purchasing a gun? THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS !!!"

2. "I have my gun for protection!" 

Maybe you do. And maybe your neighbor has a rifle only for hunting in legally sanctioned hunting grounds. Cool. You and your neighbor are not my concern, nor are you the concern for the vast majority of liberals advocating gun control. Seriously, despite whatever Fox News or the NRA might have said to the contrary, it's actually perfectly alright with us if you keep your guns for hunting and protection. But if that's really your concern, why are so many right-wingers so dead-set against any and all gun restriction? The guns the Vegas shooter used, for example, were not designed for home protection. You do not hunt for deer with semiautomatic weapons. Everyone knows this. But liberal attempts to restrict access to such mass-killing weapons are routinely rebuffed, both in Congress and in non-governmental forums. Such attempts clearly aren't aimed at restricting your right to reasonably hunt animals or protect your homes with legally obtained firearms. So what's the problem?

Don't give me the "slippery slope" answer. You know the one. "If we let you restrict automatic firearms, when do the restrictions end?" Alright, I admit and agree, I don't know where it ends. But two can play at the slippery slope: "Yeah, but if we let you keep a handgun in your home to protect your family, why not just let you own a private nuclear arsenal too? Where does it end?"

Sounds silly, doesn't it.

The fact is, liberals who advocate gun control are not talking about absolute or unlimited restrictions on gun ownership. We're talking about things that really, really should be -- and yet somehow aren't -- considered "common sense" restrictions. Automatic and semiautomatic weapons, the kinds that are, admit it, never needed for home protection or hunting, that's a biggie with us. Background checks are another. I'll admit I've never understood the problem right-wingers have with background checks. Is your issue with the perceived invasion of privacy? But people submit to credit checks to get credit cards, home loans, etc. all the time, and never gripe about the invasion of privacy. I've never heard of anyone getting shot by a home loan before. Is it the inconvenience of the time delay? Is that your argument, "but a background check takes time, and I want a gun now!"? What's the urgency?

3. "Access to guns doesn't actually increase the likelihood of gun violence." 

I've heard this argument a lot, and the -- sorry to be insulting, but I'm going to be frank here -- sheer stupidity of this argument astounds me. People on both sides of the argument bounce statistics at each other all the time, and if there's one truism I believe in, it's that a complicated statistic has never changed anyone's mind over an emotional argument. So let's, for just a moment at least, simplify the statistics a bit. Quick, take a guess at how many people died of automobile accidents before the automobile was invented! The answer: Zero! Do you know how many people who have never been to to the ocean have been killed by a shark? Zero! Do you know how many citizens of Walla-Walla, Washington have been killed by elephant stampede? Zero! Notice the pattern? Of course access to guns increases the likelihood of gun violence! Without the former, it is literally impossible to have the latter. There's simply no argument that states otherwise.

Now hold on a minute. If you're right-wing, I know you what you might be thinking at this point. "That's ridiculous, Movie Man! Even if you could restrict my access to guns all you wanted, nothing's going to stop a random criminal from shooting me if I walk down the wrong street at the wrong time!"

You are, of course, absolutely right. But if gun regulations made it too difficult for that criminal to get a gun? That's the liberal anti-gun agenda, right there.

4. "It's a mental health issue." 

Mmmmaybe. To an extent. I agree that many mass shootings tend to be done by people with easily diagnosable mental health issues. But how did these crazy people get guns in the first place? See points 2 and 3 above. What's more, congressional Republicans have cast a lot of doubt on the sincerity of the "it's a mental health issue" argument, because when Obama and congressional Democrats tried to meet right-wingers half way and said, "okay, if it's a mental health issue, let's do mental health background checks as a part of firearm applications," the Republicans tore that notion apart faster than a pack of hyenas eating their breakfast.

5. "I've got a whole list of things that kill more people than gun violence does: cancer, car accidents, complications from obesity, etc. Why, Mr. Liberal, do you want to regulate guns, but not these other issues?"

I have two responses for you on this one. First, unlike products that cause cancer, unlike cars, and unlike foods and lifestyles that lead to obesity, guns are made for one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill and/ or cause serious injury. Seriously, even if your guns are strictly for home protection, you still can't argue that basic fact.

If someone invented a car that couldn't hurt anybody, or a cigarette that didn't cause any health problems, or a cupcake that tastes delicious but wouldn't make you fat even if you ate a hundred of them a day, that person would become a billionaire. And you know it.

But if someone tried to sell you a gun and said, "it can't kill or even hurt anybody, not really," you wouldn't buy it. And no one else would either.

And you know it.

So yeah, considering that guns are made for the sole purpose of killing people, yes, we think they should be regulated -- and it confuses the hell out of us when other people say, "no they shouldn't."

More to the point, though, to answer the question posed above: "why do you want to regulate guns but not these other issues" -- that question is based on a clearly false premise. We do regulate automobiles, cigarettes, etc., and the access people have to them. And not only do we regulate them, but yes, liberals want to regulate them even more. Say what you will about liberals, but we're not nearly as hypocritical as the above question suggests.

6. "You're trying to take away my guns!"

No we're not. We're really not. Don't take my word for it. Review any and (if you have the time and desire) all anti-gun arguments and statements mainstream liberals have made. Obama, Bernie, Hillary, etc. None of them, not once, has talked about taking your legally purchased guns out of your home against your will. That has never been and still isn't on the liberal agenda when it comes to gun restriction. The closest anyone has come is the occasional voluntary program that makes the news, programs for people to turn their firearms in to various law enforcement agencies, with no questions asked. And those are voluntary programs. Hey, remember that time that Bill Clinton was President and he had the majority of Congress on his side of the political spectrum? Democrats all over the place, and even then, not one person in Washington said, "hey, let's take away people's legally owned guns!"

I recently made a comment on Facebook that summarized the Republican side of the gun debate as, "Screw you, liberal sheep! You're idiots and un-American! Guns don't have anything to do with people being shot! You're not taking MY guns away, you god-damn fascists!"

This blog post is my attempt to engage in an actual dialogue that goes beyond such knee-jerk reactions on the right, and such oversimplifications on the left. If you have anything to add to the debate, please respond. If your response is along the line of the stereotypical response above, please don't.