According to some politicians whose fiery opinions on gun control are stoked by generous NRA contributions, the path to the end of mass shootings is soley paved by  massive mental-health initiatives, armed school guards, armed teachers and whatever other reach their fatty cerebrums can cook up. Anything but gun-control laws.

I’m challenging their take with the help of an analogy inspired by the nineteenth-century literary icon, Anton Chekhov, who posited a principle of dramaturgy which–paraphrased–stated that if, in the first act, one sees a firearm on the wall, it is surely destined to go off by the third act.

Given the proliferation of military-grade firearm ownership in America  (welded, of course, to a population teeming with  mental health challenges and rife with internet hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, etc.),  an epidemic of mass homicides was bound to befall the body politic.

I’m convinced that if Chekhov were alive today and charged with drafting gun-control legislation, he would  grip the nexus of the problem and, in his first act, summarily banish military grade assault rifles  from the national stage, hence wrenching it from the grip of a dangerously angry cast of   bad actors

Now picture Chekhov’s  imagined nineteenth century rifle that murdered but one. Next, extrapolate into the twenty-first century, convert it into a  all-to-real AR-15, and multiply by thousands and thousands.  Mindful of Chekhov’s prescient dictum, it’s not exactly hard to grasp that, as things stand today,the protraction of the spasmotically repeated slaughter of innocent multitudes, is inexorable.

My ad copywriter’s handbook advises that one should always close an appeal with a call to action. Fair enough. Hey, you schmuck Republican legislators, vote to outlaw civilian ownership of military grade firearms. NOW.