I LOVE GUNS. DON'T CONFUSE ME WITH THE FACTS.

It's not clear from early reports how big a factor this was in his rampage, but it is being reported that Richard Poplawski, who just killed three cops in Pittsburgh, told acquaintances that he feared an "Obama gun ban."

The gunners, of course, expected the last Democratic president to ban all guns. Needless to say, he didn't ban all guns. Democratic politicians never ban all guns. No Democratic politician ever will ban all the guns.

And yet this fact is dismissed by literally every pro-gun zealot in America.

Pro-gunners are like children firmly convinced that the boogeyman is under the bed -- except they're not like children because it doesn't matter how many times Dad shines a flashlight under the bed to show there's nothing there, and it doesn't matter how much time passes, because they never grow up and realize their fears were infantile and unfounded and easily proved wrong by simple empirical evidence. What's more, they declare their belief in the boogeyman to be defiantly politically incorrect, and a necessary check on tyranny.

It's not a freaking check on tyranny. It's delusional. And the cynical organizations that encourage the delusion to keep their membership rolls fat are making people stupid and crazy.