BUILDING THE GUN WALL AND OTHER IMPRACTICAL PROJECTS

Mr. Trump famously wants to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of the U.S. He says: "We either have a border or we don't."

Well, at least he gives us a choice.

I think the answer is this: We don't have a border.

Because if by border you mean a line you can't cross without permission, then no country has a border.

Of course some lines are harder to cross than others, but they're all quite crossable. It's just a matter of putting up the right level of resources.

In olden times, rural prisons had what they called the "dead line." If a prisoner crossed that line, he would be shot dead. Simple as that.

Far as I know, Trump hasn't mentioned arming the Wall.

But he does plan to round up everybody in the country who doesn't belong here legally. Ejected people could then join the queue on the far side of the Wall and petition to get back in.

Critics say rounding up all those people—and there are millions and millions of them—would be a logistical nightmare. Add to that, many of the "illegal" adults have legal children—citizens of the U.S. by virtue of their birth here.

(Trump would like to plug that loophole, too.)

In any case, he says the whole family must be deported, including the legal members. Maybe that would make it easier for some of them to get back in at a later date.

Speaking of logistical nightmares, here's another one: Rounding up all the guns in this country.

Every time some whack-job goes into a school with a knapsack full of guns and ammo, gun owners gird themselves for an assault on their Second Amendment rights.

For them, every adjustment of the term "legal weapon" is the thin edge of a wedge that threatens to separate them from all their guns.

Though the vast majority of Americans support stricter background checks for folks seeking to buy a gun, a rabid fringe of the NRA sees this as just another attempt to confiscate all weapons from all people.

If the law says crazy people can't own guns, who gets to say who's crazy and who's not? Maybe in the future the desire to own a gun will be defined as "crazy."

Consequently, for NRA true believers, every road leads to total confiscation.

Give a human being a little push, and he almost always ends up at the farthest edges of imagined horror. Fortunately, whatever you imagine can be used as a legitimate argument against whatever it is you're fighting.

Gun owners like to point out the possession of guns prevents governmental tyranny. They'll say stuff like: If the Jews had been armed, there would have been no Holocaust.

Nonsense.

Cops routinely round up armed criminals, usually just before dawn, in well-planned raids employing overwhelming force. As a result, our prisons are overstocked with bad guys whose guns did them no good when the time came.

Oddly, a program to arm German Jews might have ended in world domination—by the Nazis.

(Armed Jews would have meant the authorities needed more effort to grab 'em up, a complicated process that might have delayed the start of the war, giving the German military more time to prepare. Hand the soldiers another five or ten years to get ready, they might have gone all the way. In this scenario, Nevil Chamberlain becomes the hero of World War Two. His appeasement of Hitler gave the lunatic the confidence to start the war early, before he'd amassed enough men and equipment to make it to the end. But I digress.)

Here's the problem for the "more background check" people: That guy behind the Oregon college shooting owned more than a dozen guns, all purchased legally. His background was checked, and he was found worthy.

School shootings come in clusters, like teen suicides. Think of the decay of radioactive materials: You know a certain number of nuclei are going to eject an alpha particle, you just can't predict which ones.

No question, guys: There will be more shootings.

Confiscating all guns in this country might prevent shooters from having their way, but it wouldn't stop lunatics armed with framing hammers and gasoline or whatever came to hand when the urge hit them.

Fact is, a determined man could do a lot of damage with a good pair of motorcycle boots.

As long as human beings are willing to act on the nonsense that rolls around inside their noggins, there will be murder and mass killings.

And the gun nuts are right: If everybody in that college classroom had been armed, there would have been fewer deaths. On the other hand, arming everybody all the time is just as impractical as disarming everybody forever.

Does that mean nothing can be done?

Here's a modest proposal: Teach gun safety in school—and be ever on the look-out for signs of aberrant behavior among students. Vet those guys from an early age, redoubling your efforts in the teen years, when schizophrenia tends to crop up.

We also need to do a better job clamping down on bullies—those guys carry the school-shooting germ into our society. Just as bullies at work (including management) help create workplace shootings.

Or maybe we need some sort of TSA-like screening in every place where monsters and victims congregate.

It's the cost of doing business as human beings in an overcrowded world.

TRUMPS OF DOOM

Donald Trump's time as front runner seems to be over, this in spite of his closest rival's anti-Muslim stumble.

It's probably for the best, really.

Trump is a loud mouth bully, in public. It may be we've had hotheads in the office of President before, just as we've had other human types: drunks, paranoids, depressives, leches.

Generally, however, our top leaders have seen fit to indulge themselves only in private. There's no indication Trump will rein himself in just because he's standing in front of a Vladimir Putin or Angela Merkel.

Trump seems to see things differently than the rest of us.

When Univision anchor Jorge Ramos tried to ask him a question at a press conference, Trump repeatedly told the man to sit down. He even had the guy removed (at least temporarily). Asked about it later Trump characterized the fellow as "ranting and raving like a madman." Is that what you saw?

More importantly, does Trump honestly think it happened that way?

Trump shoots off his mouth repeatedly, then backs off and blames the listener for misinterpreting his remarks. He seems to have no verbal control whatsoever.

Does he simply talk that way, or is that his honest take on events? Does he say what he thinks, then, when his people point out his political gaff, is forced to backpedal?

Drama queen or delusional?

Either way, can he be allowed to front this country, with his self-satisfied Mussolini-like nod to the adoring crowds? (That Mussolini thing didn't work out so well for him or his country--though he did, for a while, make Italy great again.)

A while back one of Trump's fawning supporters stood up to ask about our training foreign fighters in dangerous parts of the world. He prefaced his question (for some reason) by pointing out we all know Obama is a Muslim--as well as a foreigner.

As Trump listened to the prefacing remarks, he nodded and muttered "right," apparently agreeing to the assertion of Obama as Muslim.

As for the question of Obama's foreign birth, Trump will now only say he no longer talks about that. He clearly is convinced Obama was born in Kenya, but doesn't want to get in trouble for saying so.

And he's not alone. A recent CNN poll found that 28% of Republicans think Obama is not a U.S. citizen by birth, a situation which, if true, would disqualify him for the office of President.

Forty-three percent think the man is Muslim.

Among Democrats, that number drops to 15%.

(Independents take the middle ground: only 29% think Obama is Muslim.)

For himself, Obama says he didn't grow up Christian, but chose to be one as an adult.

Frankly, I find that troubling. I can see how a child indoctrinated with that nonsense can live into adulthood without shaking it loose. But what does it say when a grownup consciously chooses it from the smorgasbord of religious poop? Doesn't Obama realize Christianity is an end-of-the-world cult that has for two thousand years failed to perform its mission?

As for Republicans, maybe thinking Obama is Muslim gives them cover to hate the man for something other than being black. Might not be PC, but it's definitely an improvement.

TRUMP'S WALL

The man is now famous for wanting to oust all illegals and, to keep them out, put up an enormous wall along our border with Mexico

Which he will some how force Mexico to pay for.

I've heard others mention a companion wall along the Canadian border. That makes sense. When one route is blocked, folks look for another way to get where they want to go.

And let's not neglect America's coastline. The Coast Guard is kept busy in California and Florida dealing with folks arriving in small boats. (And submarines.)

Clearly, what we need is a dome. America needs to be put under glass, hermetically sealed, wrapped in a cocoon of translucent Kevlar.

Better: Stealth mode. Make the country disappear beneath an invisible dome.

After a while, the "huddled masses" will stop even trying to find their way into what will become a mythical sanctuary. Eventually, people may forget there ever was a real America.

Now that's safety from intrusion!

C'mon, Mr. Trump, don't just make America Great Again.

Make America Fabled!