I’m a relatively smart guy. You know what the problem is with being a relatively smart guy? The problem is it’s hard to believe that other people can be so incredibly fucking stupid.

I know that sounds arrogant, and that bothers me. But it doesn’t alter the fact that there are some astonishingly stupid people out there — and some of them are in Congress. The depth and breadth of their stupidity is so massive it can’t be covered in a single blog entry. It can’t be covered in a single book. There are people in both houses of Congress who are stupid on an encyclopedic scale; it would take multiple volumes to cover the extent of their stupidity. But right now I’m just thinking about their stupidity on the current United Nations Arms treaty.

Senator Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, Pretty Fucking Stupid

If you’re not aware of it, the U.N. has spent the last seven years banging out an agreement that will establish some minimal controls on the international gun trade. We’re talking about tanks, military drones, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, AND small arms sold in bulk. The controls are based on whether the weapons “will be used to break humanitarian law, foment genocide or war crimes, abet terrorism or organized crime or slaughter women and children.” It’s aimed at curbing the major arms dealers, the corporations (and nations) that deal in bulk weapon sales.

The treaty was passed, 154 to 3. The three nations that voted against the treaty? North Korea, Syria, and Iran. The U.S. approved the treaty, but it needs to be ratified by Congress. And here comes the stupid. There are a LOT of Republicans (and, sadly, some Democrats) who are siding with North Korea. Why? Because, despite all the evidence, this nitwits believe the U.N. treaty will inevitably lead to the confiscation of firearms from gun owners in the U.S. That is some serious stupid, right there.

Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, Pretty Fucking Stupid

“I am gravely concerned this treaty will infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of American gun owners.” — Senator Jerry Moran

“I have great concerns that this treaty can be used to violate the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.” — Senator Mike Lee

“This U.N. treaty takes away Constitutional authority; it diminishes the Constitution, it gives up Constitutional rights to a U.N. authority that should not exist. Anyone who votes for this U.N. treaty is violating their oath to support and defend the Constitution. It’s that simple.” — Representative Louie Gohmert

Let me just repeat the purpose of the treaty. It’s to make it more difficult for major arms exporters to sell weapons in bulk to governments or political movements or other military entities who are likely to use those weapons to 1) violate humanitarian law, 2) engage in genocide or war crimes, 3) engage in terrorism or organized crime, 4) or slaughter women and children.

Representative Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Incredibly Fucking Stupid

The treaty would have NO effect at all on anybody’s ability to walk into a gun shop and buy any gun they can afford. In order to believe the treaty would somehow infringe on the Second Amendment, you’d have to be really paranoid and pretty fucking stupid.

How paranoid and fucking stupid? Paranoid and fucking stupid enough to believe the treaty includes provisions to ban people 55 and older from owning a weapon. That notion is circulating widely among conservatives. NO, I’m NOT making this up.

Why do they believe that? Because 1) U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is said (I can find no record of this statement) to have expressed an opinion that people who’ve been “adjudicated mentally defective and persons with attenuating cerebral faculties” probably shouldn’t own weapons because they could be a danger to themselves. And because 2) somebody in Amnesty International pointed out that research shows “a significant majority of gun-related suicides, accidental shootings, non-fatal negligent discharges are perpetrated by persons 55 and over.” So therefore: 3) the United Nations is going to seize the guns of everybody over age 55, and that’s just the first step to 4) confiscating ALL THE GUNS.

I know, I know…that defies any semblance of normal logic. But logic is weak armor against stupid, especially when stupid is driven by fear. Want proof? Here’s Rep. Gohmert’s argument against limiting firearm magazines to ten rounds:

“[W]hy would you draw the line at ten? What’s wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit; it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?”

Got that? If you limit ammunition to ten rounds pretty soon people will be marrying goats. And that slippery slope will inevitably lead to laws requiring us to speak French and eat soft communist cheeses. You can’t refute that logic.