Fair is fair. The media have declared the Second Amendment ineffective. We get it.

But guns are only half the problem, right? Someone has to pull the trigger. So in the same spirit that the media are looking out for our best interests, the Czar would now propose that we look out for the media’s best interests. Sort of a tit for tat; although, given the media and firearms, perhaps git for gat would be better. ‘Puter thought of it; here’s how this would work.

1. The media want to ban assault weapons. Okay, then we propose banning “incitement reporting.” The term is just as nebulous, but basically will cover all reporting of mass shooting, sensationalized reporting of criminal activities, breaking news stories designed to provoke fear and insecurity. For example, doing a biographical piece on a mass shooter gives him the fame and attention he sought but was denied in life. And thus it appears, we know now, to inspire the next mass shooter to do the same. If a news agency reports on the shooter’s name, speculates on his political affiliation, his motivations, his former life, where he got the guns, and so on, that’s $10,000 in fines and up to 5 years in prison. After all, we are here to protect the children from the next guy.

2. The media want to limit magazines to five rounds or less. In fairness, the media will be restricted to five seconds per story. After all, that ought to be enough. And yeah, you could just change topics and get another five seconds and defeat the point, but if you can’t cover the story in five seconds, maybe you’re a crazed nutjob who dwells on unpleasant topics. And something oughta be done to stop you.

3. The media want to eliminate semiautomatic weapons. After all, there is nothing more dangerous than having a spring reload your weapon with the next bullet even if means you have to consciously pull the trigger to fire that next bullet. The point is you are letting the tool do some of the work for you. In response, the media can no longer use the internet to research or source a story. From now on, reporters need to manually fact-check stories with primary sources only, and rely on no automation whatsoever…even though using the web isn’t fully automated, but you get the idea. It makes it too easy to misreport something.

4. The media believe certain highly-effective calibers must be eliminated because they could inspire people to violence. Likewise, we suggest that the media no longer report on certain topics, such as Hollywood celebrities (which could inspire people to greedy narcissism), sex crimes (because they could inspire people to commit rapes), popular technology (because it forces sociopathic…hey, you know what? You can figure this out for yourself!). In fact, there will be no reporting on entertainment news, sports, weather, traffic, politics, or anything outside simple, harmless vanilla topics like local news, lost dogs, kittens rescued from trees, and other feel-good topics.

5. The media think that the public should rely on police for home protection, and not firearms. In trade, the media will no longer rely on reporters to report news in a timely and accurate fashion, but must call a third-party to travel from wherever they are to the scene, gather the pertinent facts, and then issue a report back the next day or so which must then be fact-checked in accordance with item 3, above. This seems inefficient and even stupid, but reporters should not be trusted to get anything right, especially when someone they don’t know who might be miles away can do it just as easily. For the most part. If everything goes right, that is.

6. The media suggest all guns and even ammunition should be registered with a federal authority. Sure, and the media shall therefore register all news stories with a federal authority prior to receiving permission to print them. Yes, this will be a slow, pointless, and laborious process—and one that will clearly indicate which person compiled the story, who specifically wrote it, who the editor was, who approved the story for transmission, and who formatted or typeset or prepared the story the recipient saw. Names and addresses and phone numbers. Because that won’t ever be abused by the public.

Of course, media types would read this and lose their lunch over how stupid these suggestions are: how trivial, insulting, and off-the-mark they are. Each one of these is ludicrous, will do no benefit for the public, and will be nothing but foolishness.

Exactly. Don’t like it, do ya?

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.