Too trigger-happy

Those who think NIU case will spur more gun control should expect the opposite

And guns. I promised myself, in the days after the NIU massacre, not to breathe a word about guns, because the prospect of any kind of meaningful gun control in this country is as impossible a dream as perpetual motion.

Yet some people are so naive as to believe that this latest slaughter will move the public even an inch toward a more responsible gun policy, and that kind of pure giddiness unseals my lips, because the complete opposite is true: Such crimes only inspire our leaders to want to make guns MORE available. Fully a dozen states, before this crime, were considering laws to overturn university bans on students carrying concealed weapons, the fantasy being that when the next killer bursts through the door, Brandi in the third row will pull a Sig Sauer out of her Hello Kitty backpack and drop the guy.

The reality is: American college campuses are perhaps the safest spots on Earth, a fact in no way diminished by these freakishly rare shootings. Allowing students to carry handguns would be a disaster; for every massacre avoided -- if any were -- there'd be 100 drunken frat louts shooting each other and 200 momentarily depressed sophomores shooting themselves.

But that is reality, and dull reality loses out to a pretty fantasy every time.

Speaking of pretty fantasies . . .

So I went to the Auto Show Saturday night. An odd call for me, I know, and, in my defense, it wasn't my idea. The younger boy suggested, "Let's go to the Auto Show." And while it would have been easy to blow off the idea with a facile putdown -- "Cars are the narcotic that dulls the pain of being an American," or some such thing -- I try to let the boys experience at least a taste of normalcy. What is more normal than the Auto Show?

Though I did take a certain pleasure in the Edens being jammed. It took a solid two hours to get to McCormick Place, bumper to bumper with the not-quite-so-thrilling-anymore attractions from auto shows of yesteryear.

Sixteen dollars to park. Ten dollars a head for the adults, five bucks for the kids. All to gain entry to the biggest car showroom on the planet. Someone on a yacht somewhere is laughing his ass off.

A squad of sociologists could have a field day here, and I'm surprised they don't -- you'd think the University of Chicago would routinely shut down their anthropology and psych departments during the week of the Auto Show and order their students there. I stood in front of a rescue-me yellow Lamborghini for maybe 10 seconds, but that was long enough for a woman to turn away from it with an affronted mutter of, "Nine miles to the gallon!" and a man to turn away, marveling, "220 miles per hour!" Dissertations have been based on less.

Environmentalism is huge this year. The brown carpet at Toyota had a plaque on it that read: "The carpet you are standing on contains 40 percent recycled nylon content, which is made from excess carpet cut-offs, excess carpet trimmings, and leftover yarn. 51 percent of the carpet backing is made from post-industrial and post-consumer recycled content."

And upon that Earth-friendly carpet, on a raised platform, like a god: the 13 mpg Toyota Sequoia 4 x 4. The irony would look cheap in fiction.

Meanwhile, at Ford, the concept Lincoln MKT -- the same see-through-roofed, ooh-neato vision of the future they've been trotting out for 50 years -- slowly rotated. And a model touted the environmental friendliness of its carpet made of -- I swear to God, this is a quote -- "hand-knotted banana silk" and seats filled with "soybean type foam."

And lest the Jetson children worry about where the wood in the Lincoln MKT's dashboard comes from, the model assured the crowd that it is "reconstituted oak."

"We actually re-use scraps from furniture makers and other sources," the model said.

One would hope so.

I had expected to feel a frustrated yearning when confronted with the cream of the world's auto industry. I worried it would make me feel even more failed, woebegone and abject than I ordinarily do.

But when we stumbled out of there, hours later, and headed to Chinatown for a late dinner, I was relieved to find myself not wanting any of these fancy new cars at all -- so much so that it worried me. I mean, what kind of guy doesn't lust after new cars?

This joke was submitted by Cynthia Heisler:

After 25 years of marriage, a man took a long look at his wife and said:

"Honey, 25 years ago we had nothing -- we lived in a cheap apartment, drove a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black-and-white TV. Despite that, I got to sleep every night with a hot, 25-year-old blond."

She nodded, uncertain where he was going with this. The husband continued:

"Today we have an $800,000 home, a $40,000 car, an expensive king-sized bed and a plasma flat-screen TV, but I'm sleeping with a 50-year-old woman. Something isn't right. It seems to me that you're not holding up your side of things."

The wife, a very reasonable woman, replied:

"If you want to go out and find yourself a hot, 25-year-year old blond, I'll be more than happy to make sure that you are once again living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch, black-and-white TV."