Rand Paul Will Be President Of All Americans Who Want To Carry Guns In Post Offices

We did not listen to Rand Paul’s Rand Paul Party Response to the State of the Union last night, so we are not sure if he talked up his latest, boldest legislative proposal to liberate Americans from a very specific kind of tyranny: the kind where you aren’t allowed to bring your gun into the post office. 

On Wednesday, January 29, Senator Rand Paul will offer an amendment, in committee, to the Postal Reform Act (S. 1486).

The amendment will allow you to drive into a post office parking lot with your gun, and will allow you to carry it into the post office, to the extent state law would allow you to carry that firearm in any other venue.

This is a story that would not look out of place on theonion.com, but it is really happening, in America, in 2014, and it is because of two things: One, despite all caterwauling to the contrary, America remains a very wealthy country; and two, the primary system we use to select major party nominees is a joke, and the punchline is Rand Paul.

First: America is a very wealthy country. Not just the Buffetts and the Kochs and the Beyoncés -- compared to the rest of the world, the average American has a lot to be thankful for. The basic necessities of life are, if not exactly easy to come by, at least available to the vast majority of citizens. So, when a politician's district office fields more calls about UFO sightings than, say, food safety, what happens? Call it the Wonkette Postulate: In general, the frivolity of the median legislative proposal is directly proportional to the relative prosperity of the median voter. This is not to say that the median voter in Rand Paul’s Kentucky is living like a king, just that they’re significantly better off than the global majority. If they weren’t, more of them would be making practical, substantive demands.

Second: This primary system, oh mercy! In 2012, there were 221,925,820 eligible voters in the United States. 18,682,820 voted in the Republican primary for president. Do the math, and that’s about 8.4% of America’s eligible voters picking one of the two people with a snowball’s chance in the Daily Caller newsroom of winning the presidency. As a rule, primary voters are the extreme partisans. On the right, that very much includes people who fetishize guns to an extent that would make you feel sorry for the emptiness and anxiety that they must feel inside, if you really wanted to think about it, which you don’t. The vast majority of Americans would abhor Rand Paul’s “guns everywhere, especially post offices” proposal, if they knew about it, but by the time of the primary it will be forgotten by everyone but those for whom this sentence resonates:

Have you ever wondered why you can't pull your pickup truck into the parking lot of the Gillette, Wyoming, post office, go in, and mail a letter -- without giving up your Second Amendment rights?

No, we absolutely have not wondered that. But there’s a million or so people who have, and a non-zero number of them just got a little warmer on the idea of Rand Paul for president.

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[ gunowners.org   hat tip Chascates / elections.gmu.edu / uselectionatlas.org / Daily Caller ]