In Which I Fix Gun Control in America

Okay, so, this might seem a little odd at first look, but hear me out:

Last week, I mentioned DroneNet, a notion by John Robb concerning the possibility of using drones for incredibly fast deliveries through a consumer-level ad hoc network. Put an internet-connected landing pad in your back garden, and you’re on the DroneNet and Amazon Prime becomes a next-hour, not a next-day, service. John reported on Twitter the other day that the US Army are already looking into financing a version of this idea.

The ratified text of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

America can reasonably be said to be in contravention of that amendment at this time, because the current form of gun sale does not constitute the arming of a well regulated militia of the people, nor do they constitute the operation of state security. In fact, one can read that amendment as “the right to keep and bear arms in servitude to a well-regulated militia in pursuit of state security shall not be infringed.” The security of a free state is not the same thing as personal security.

(You can argue my reading of that sentence, but I am a best-selling author with many awards who was once given a medal and I bought my daughter a pony, and you are probably not, therefore your argument is both invalid and funny to me.)

So what I propose is the banning in America of all firearms except those attached to a drone.

I’m not infringing the American right to bear arms. I am qualifying it. In order to adhere to the letter of the holy goddamn Second Amendment, firearms may only be attached to drones, in service of state security, and you have to belong to a militia to do it. It says that right there in the American Bible.

Those could be state-bounded. The New York Drone Swarm. The Citizen Drone Army Of Ohio. Hey, on quiet days when the sanctity of the United States isn’t being threatened by faceless foreign hordes who fart chemtrails, you could probably get a reasonably interesting extreme-sports TV show out of that. Or, you know, you could go Federal and just run The People’s Drone Fleet Of America.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a drone is a good guy with a drone. If the people had had drones in 2001, 9/11 would never have happened. The talking points write themselves. “If Hitler hadn’t taken the drones away from the Jews.” On and on. “A drone in every classroom” becomes an enjoyable slogan on a number of levels.

Since guns are apparently the only deterrent to burglary in the US, and drones are quite difficult to wear if you’re breaking into a house at the same time, domestic crime would clearly plummet overnight. And, naturally, the threat of invasion by the United Nations would be instantly erased. Who’s going to fuck with America when its airspace is heaving with armed citizen-militia drones? Alex Jones and Wayne LaPierre could finally breathe easy, knowing that the United States is defended from those New World Order fuckers by a giant cloud of flying American guns.

I could just give this idea away to you, but that would be godless Communism, and therefore my agent awaits your money. Because guns are first and foremost a business, right?

Follow Warren on Twitter: @warrenellis

Image by Marta Parszeniew

Previously: The Inevitable Crapness of 2013