The Second Amendment, and the way it has recently been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, makes most bills that attempt to bar or inhibit Americans from possessing guns futile.

On the flip side, the resistance of many Americans to surrendering to a totally armed populace has made it difficult to pass new laws that repeal or liberalize gun possession restrictions.

Last month, Arizona’s gun-toter-in-chief, Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, has once again proposed an omnibus gun bill that includes allowing college students and faculty to pack heat on campus.

Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a similar Gould bill last year but not because the state’s community college boards, university presidents and faculty organizations were nearly unanimous in opposition. Brewer’s beef was with vague language.

So Gould crafted a new bill this year that allows people with a concealed-carry permit to keep their guns in their pants (or purse) while on campus. If a college doesn’t want guns in the classroom, it has to provide storage lockers and metal detectors at all entrances to buildings, a cost so prohibitive it’s almost guaranteed not to happen.

College leaders and administrators are once-again lining up in opposition. In doing so, they run out a parade of horribles to illustrate the harm pistol-packing students and teachers will cause. Why, it will be Armageddon – drunken college students shooting up dorms and fraternities, running gun battles in the halls; mass hysteria.

Except it won’t happen. Four states – Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin and Mississippi- already allow guns on campus and so far nothing bad has happened. Nor is it likely to happen.

The common counter to that data is Virginia Tech, in which a student in 2007 killed more than 30 students and teachers. Or locally, the UA Nursing School shooting in 2002 in which a student killed three teachers.

How could those shootings happen when Virginia and Arizona banned guns on campuses? It happened because both shooters were insane. Funny thing about the insane, they tend not to care what the law says.

Guns can’t be banned because of the Second Amendment. But a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, District of Columbia v. Heller, has opened the door to regulating how they can be possessed outside of the home.

In that ruling (and a subsequent 2010 ruling), the court disconnected guns from regulated militias and ruled that the Second Amendment allowed Americans to keep guns in their homes for self defense. It didn’t extend that protection to persons and has raised questions about what happens to guns outside of the home.

Some states are taking advantage of that ruling and seeking tighter restrictions on gun possession, other states, such as Arizona, are taking the opposite tack and loosening gun restrictions.

The early data show that states that have tightened gun laws have seen no marked decrease in gun violence. Yet the same goes for states that have loosened gun laws – there has been no marked increase in gun violence.

Morever, as a society, we seem to have a high tolerance for gun violence. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 100,000 people suffer gunshot wounds in America every year and about a third of them die. (That’s a higher casualty rate than most wars America has fought.)

Of those who died, more than half were suicides. The majority of the rest were shootings connected to drug dealing.

Gun restriction advocates like to say that strict controls on gun ownership, or even eradication will lower the numbers of killed and wounded. Hardly. There are nearly 200 million firearms in American homes. Irrespective of the Second Amendment, there’s no realistic way to get rid of those guns, which means criminals and depressives will still have access to them.

On the other hand, gun rights advocates like to argue that if all Americans carried a gun, crime would plummet because any time a ne’er-do-well drew his gat, an army of pistol-packing mammas and papas would draw their shootin’ irons and gun the varmint down. That will never happen. Morever, if it ever did, the crossfire from all the missed shots would be more likely to kill bystanders than bad guys.

So the argument that we’ll be less safe if everyone’s got a gun is just as specious that we’ll be safer if everyone does.

Most of the gun violence in this country (other than suicides) is committed by people involved in the illicit drug trade. Solve the illegal drug problem in America and the amount of gun violence will fall precipitously.

Pass Gould’s bill or don’t, it won’t really matter. College campuses will be just as safe (or dangerous, depending on your perspective) if some faculty and students have concealed guns than if they didn’t.

The President of the United States can’t fix what’s wrong with America.

You wouldn’t know that from listening to the presidential campaign rhetoric from the Republicans who want to replace the current POTUS or from the POTUS himself.

They all sound like the President is a dictator who can do wondrous things by mere decree.

He can’t. He needs the Congress. And the Congress is what’s wrong with America.

The country remains stuck in the economic doldrums as it tries to recover from a brutal recession yet the Congress last year passed only 90 laws, the fewest in 20 years.

Among the substantial, transformative legislation they passed were bills that: Named several post offices; Created a new postage stamp; Required the president to continue to support Democracy in Belarus; Authorized the presentation of American flags to the families of civilian U.S. employees killed in the line of duty; reformed the American Legion charter; created rules and regulations for the America’s Cup yacht race; and named a few more post offices.

If changing names on post offices could resurrect the housing market, repair the nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure, bring manufacturing jobs back from overseas or lower the unemployment rate, why we’d be in the pink.

Some Constitutional scholars argue that government inaction is the way the government is supposed to work. The system of checks and balances prevents any majority from running roughshod over any minority. And when the country is evenly divided politically, as it is now, little can be accomplished because the rules empower dissenters.

But it’s hard to imagine that the Framers of the Constitution had this level of legislative paralysis in mind.

According to a December Gallup Poll, Americans’ distaste for Congress is at an all time high. Nearly 9 out of 10 Americans are unhappy with the Congress and want it to change.

But there’s an amount of cognitive dissonance in that poll. While Congress as a whole is despised, district-by-district polls of individual Congressional members show much higher approval ratings. So we hate the Congress, but love our Congress member. That makes no sense.

That dissonance showed up in the past three Congressional elections when the Congress as a whole had 80 percent or more disapproval ratings yet 85 to 95 percent of incumbents won re-election.

This is an election year. Every seat in the House of Representatives is up for election and one-third of the Senate. It’s up to us to elect candidates who will work together when necessary and not wing nuts who pine for the government of the 19^th Century or who want to mandate we all eat Tofu and have solar panels on our roofs.

If we want the POTUS – whomever it ends up being – to lead the nation back to robust prosperity and low unemployment we must elect a Congress that will be a full partner in solving the nation’s problems not one that can only agree what name to give a post office.

A Norwegian TV show called “Uncle America” is working it’s way across the country telling the story of Norwegians in American, namely Norwegian Americans related to famous Norwegians.

But the show’s hosts are also doing a travelogue of off-beat America, kind of a Norwegian version of Ricky Gervais’ new show “An Idiot Abroad.”

Here’s the email and contact info if you have suggestions for the show:

My name is Sven Storberget and I work as a researcher for a Norwegian TV show called Uncle in America. Our two TV show hosts are traveling across America, and in a in the beginning of February we are coming to Arizona/Phoenix to make an episode.
I´m sending this e-mail to you as co-workers, hoping that you have some helpful tips and information for me.
The show is totally 10 episodes – all in different states. In each episode the hosts track down a relative of a famous Norwegian, and that is the end station in each episode. But before they meet this relative – on their way there – they want to do and experience interesting things and meet fascinating people in the places they visit. Like a road trip with different stops. Totally in Arizona we are thinking of four or five different stops before we meet the relative of the famous Norwegian. It is a type of road trip/travel show – but the host don´t want to visit the usual tourist attractions.
1) One part of the show is about Norwegian heritage in America. Do you know about anyone with Norwegian heritage that are doing something out of the ordinary? Or do you know about anything that can be related to Norway, and that might be interesting for our show?
2) The other part is this: Our two TV hosts want to experience the best and most fascinating  Arizona has to offer.
- Do you know about some interesting/exentric people in Arizona that are doing something interesting/unusual?
- Any sports, acitivities, events etc that our hosts could participate in?
- Any challenges/contests they could be challenged it?
- What is the “must do´s” in Arizona? What is the coolest things – something we just can´t not do?
We are looking for things that are out of the ordinary (for us Norwegians). Some examples from other episodes: Shark fishing, bigfoot researchers, gold mining, undercity exploring, buffalo hunting, ufo researchers, real life superheroes, wrestling. These are things that we have covered in other places, but I mentioned these examples to give you a picture of what category of things we are looking for.
We are in general looking for some good stories and interesting people to meet.
And a third thing:
3) If you work in/know about a tv station or a radio channel that have a contest of any kind that our tv hosts could participate in, that could be interesting for us! Our TV hosts are two norwegian musicians, and they are a part of a best-selling hip hop-group that have won the Norwegian Grammy.
We are coming to Arizona in the beginning of February.
Crossing my fingers for shortly response!
Best regards,
Sven Arild Storberget,
researcher Feelgood Film & TV production company
Cell phone: 0047 412 08 445
sven@feelgoodmail.no