Cold dead hands

It's not a great time to be an American in the Elysian Fields. The Spartans especially are having the time of their deaths hooting in derision at the American "well-regulated militia."

"You can put a man on the moon but you can't regulate a militia? What's with the land of the free that it's so rotted by mistaking libertinage for liberty that it knows nothing of DUTY?" roars Leonidas, still buff after all these years after Thermopylae.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Antonin Scalia, et al (Gallatin) just hang their heads.

"It was you, Tom, and all your fantastic notions about the virtue of the yeomanry," mutters Adams.

"It's the Christians selling out to the End Times. End Times! End Times! How many End Times have there been since Jesus died? One for every wild-eyed doomcaster that ever lived," spits Jefferson in fierce response.

Antonin Scalia tut-tuts, "Look, if people will actually read what I said in Heller, they will understand that regulatory remedies for firearms are readily available in the militia scheme. Why every governor of every state doesn't make it the top priority to regulate the statutory unorganized militia -- meaning at present (if you will pardon my obiter dicta) every adult fucking male who isn't in the National fucking Guard -- I do not understand. Licensing, annual inspection, muster requirements, weapons classification with varying levels of permission: all such things are possible. Where is the creativity of the American political class at the state level?"

Al Gallatin says nothing, but nods over in the direction of where Charlton Heston shambles by, dragging a musket by the butt, its muzzle in one of his cold, dead hands, holding a tattered Valentine from the NRA in the other.

Jefferson, Adams, Scalia, et al (Gallatin) just hang their heads.