ICE WATER

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has brought back the old ice-water challenge for students marching on Washington seeking changes in gun laws.

Grow up and smell the gunpowder, he pretty much said.

Students should realize, apparently, that school shootings are inevitable. Forget about going to Washington and trying to get other people to fix your problems with "phony gun laws." Take some personal responsibility. Learn CPR to help your fellow students when the new normal rises up to say howdy.

(After every school shooting there's a rush to buy backpacks with anti-ballistic properties, but that only helps if the kid's wearing his backpack—and is shot in the back. Still, parents have to do something.)

Forget about gun control, Santorum implies. That ship has sailed. That ship has already sunk in deep waters. That ship has already been raised and salvaged for steel to make more guns.

I get the sense gun enthusiasts consider any attempt to change gun laws to be a political ploy designed to embarrass Republican lawmakers. We all know those guys are in the thrall of the National Rifle Association and cannot act against the folks who put them in office. They have reelections to face, for God's sake!

No action can be taken, and everybody knows it.

Even President Trump, who in a televised meeting happily advocated all sorts of liberal anti-gun notions, seems to have fallen back on a position of merely outlawing bump stocks. It's the very least he can do to look presidential and yet avoid outraging his NRA handlers.

For their part, the NRA wants folks to keep their bump stocks. Then go further, gaining access to native full-auto assault weapons. M4s, or maybe SAWs (Squad Automatic Weapon). After all, the Second Amendment guarantees the ownership of all guns and by extension all gun-like weapons.

(In the giddy postwar 1950s, folks talked about miniature nukes deployed by shoulder-fired weapons resembling beefed-up rifles—not just for the battlefield, but for civilian use like putting out industrial fires. Old hands at the NRA are probably still drooling.)

In reality (but not American political reality) the Second Amendment has been obsolete since the turn of the 20th century, when this country got serious about maintaining a standing army. There's no longer any need to grab Joe Six-pack and his squirrel gun to slap together a militia to defend the homeland.

So, how do we proceed?

First, the Second Amendment would have to be repealed. That will send gun laws back to the individual states. Some, like California perhaps, would outlaw guns of all sort. Others, like Texas, might opt for semi-automatic assault weapons as a baseline.

Folks moving from state to state would find themselves inconvenienced. (Think: gunfire at border-crossing checkpoints.) Eventually, there would come a push for a new constitutional amendment outlawing guns on the federal level—the Anti-Second Amendment.

Of course that goes against America's gun-toting tradition. But we've had other traditions, like slavery, that have—for whatever reason—failed to stand the test of time.

The alternative, I suppose: universal CPR classes.

NO COLLUSION?

President Trump has repeated (ad nauseam) there was no collusion between his campaign critters and Russia during the 2016 election. Furthermore, he says since there has been no collusion, the very existence of this investigation is an intolerable hoax.

He sounds like the husband in a murder case when the cops ask him where he was when his wife died: "Wait! You think I killed my wife?! How dare you!"

(Despite the fact Lt. Provenza likes to point out: "It's always the husband. It's always the husband. It's always the husband.")

His position illustrates a logical fallacy. Everybody who's accused of a crime—and pleads not guilty—can claim no investigation is necessary to demonstrate their innocence. In fact, since we're all presumed innocent from the get-go, any attempt to discover the opposite represents some form of persecution.

Trump knows full well there was no collusion, so he's good at sounding insulted when the subject comes up. And keeps coming up!

But unless he's simply following Dr. Goebbels dictum (Repeat the lie until it is believed), we have to ask ourselves: How does Trump know there was no collusion?

I think we have to assume he polygraphed each and every campaign worker who could possibly have rubbed shoulders with a Russian official—and waterboarded most of them at least once, just to make sure. (Remember, Trump happily endorses waterboarding—and much more extravagant torture techniques—when it's vital to uncover the truth.)

To do less would be shoddy work, considering the consequences. Our very democracy is at stake here!

Frankly, to justify the repetitive level of his protests, I think we have to expect a few water- and blood-soaked corpses have been dumped in the Potomac in the dead of night. Mistakes happen, right? Emotions are heightened. The knife goes in just a tad too far...

I wonder: Are any of his people missing?

(That's a joke, son. Since the inauguration, almost all of his people have gone missing.)

Of course, Trump is ignoring those of his advisers who have already pleaded guilty to lying about their adventures with the Ruskies. And he's leaving out the campaign's alliance with Cambridge Analytica, folks happy to provide psychologically-tailored nonsense designed to outrage potential voters. And he's not commenting on the acknowledged attempt of his people (including his son and son-in-law) to get political dirt on Hillary from Russians linked to Putin.

Trump has also carefully avoided mentioning his repeated attempts to obstruct justice in the case—justice that might well grasp the man by the collar and give him a good shaking.

Yet he says, with the unearned confidence of a seasoned moron, the investigation is a witch hunt that must be stopped. For the good of the nation.

Others might argue it's Trump who must be stopped—for the good of the nation.

THE THREE PILLARS OF TRUMPISM

Trump's political stool stands on three legs:

1) Undo Obama. Whatever Obama did or wanted to do, Trump is against it by nature. This is a knee-jerk reaction. If Obama had come out in favor of putting water on houses being consumed by flames, Trump would naturally be against it. Much of America would be in ashes right now. (Give it time.)

2) Fulfill Campaign Promises. If he said it during one of his Monster Rallies, he's going to do it in real life. Then he can brag about all the promises he's keeping—and thus get reelected. Trump says he's already fulfilled more promises than he ever made. (Maybe he's making the point he should get "five more years" after the 2020 election.)

3) Wag the Dog. Whenever Mueller's investigation gets too close to home, Trump will do something outrageous to take the attention off. The "both sides" speech after Charlottesville, "arm the teachers" after Parkland, and so forth.

Now the President appears ready to perform a two-three two-fer: apply tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Many people, including those of his own party say this move will harm the country's economy. (He'd get extra points for putting the world into a new depression.) Trump will probably ignore this advice.

(Although I guess he could still say he was kidding—or trying to shake things up with a warning.)

But in political terms, applying tariffs is a no brainer. He said he would do it, and now he's going to do it. The American people are counting on him!

Unfortunately, this is a logical error.

Trump thinks he was elected to do the things he said he'd do. In truth, he mainly won because he ran against Hillary Clinton. And even those folks who voted for Trump because they really wanted him to be President do not necessarily agree with every single thing he said.

Conclusion: Trump can't say he has to apply tariffs because he was elected to do so.

(Well, of course he can say it. He just opens his mouth and the stuff comes tumbling out. He appears to have no real control over that.)

It could even be that the majority of his supporters are against tariffs on steel and aluminum. Even if doing it did benefit a small chunk of our economy. Most folks don't work—or dream of working—in a steel mill. Just like most of us don't want to descend halfway to Hell and mine coal for a living.

(Most former coal miners found better and safer jobs when the mines closed, but now that the War on Coal is over—and Trump won—will they have to quit those better jobs and go back to acquiring Black Lung?)

Trump promised to make America better, not just certain sectors of it.

One of the main reasons we have so much competition for steel is that our plants were never bombed into oblivion during WWII. Those other countries had to build new and more efficient plants. What Trump needs to do is give tax breaks to companies looking to rebuild American plants.

That would be the "fair" way to handle the situation.

Ironically, those new plants would be packed full of robots—though doubtless some humans will get to work there, too. Greasing the robots.

The world has changed a lot since WWII.