The war in Ukraine is one of those things that I’m just glad isn’t happening here. While I’ve found a lot to praise since hostilities began, I’d rather not have seen any of it.

I’ve also seen some really, really dumb takes.

However, this one in favor of international gun control probably takes the cake.

Think about the lasting effects gun violence can have on Americans. That brief moment when someone opens fire at a school, a restaurant or in the mall, and people die while others are traumatized by what they hear and see.

Shootings over the last years have sparked a debate on gun control in the United States. But how do we start a debate about global gun control to put pressure on someone like Putin to stop waging wars on innocent people? At this writing, Russia’s powerful army surrounds Ukraine’s cities and towns, apparently shooting indiscriminately. I think of those who have to flee their homes of many years. Besides sending prayers and love to Ukraine, everyone everywhere should start talking about demilitarizing the world, or guns will undoubtedly kill many more millions in many more cities.

That’s it.

That’s the single most idiotic thing I’m going to read today, and in this line of work, that’s a pretty high bar to clear.

Frankly, this may well have set a new world record for stupidity.

Look, I’m not pleased by Russian aggression right now. I’m not exactly in favor of anyone invading anyone else without a really, really good reason, and Russia doesn’t have one. (Yes, I’m aware the same case can be made about some recent US military actions, but since I wasn’t in favor of some of them, either, I don’t care.)

But if anyone thinks gun control on the international level would have prevented hostilities, they probably need to be kept away from society in a padded room lest they injure themselves.

Russia produces weapons and has a strong expansionistic bent. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to restore the Soviet Union, even if without the same doomed economic policies of outright communism. To think that international law would stop him from invading a country he’s long coveted is insane.

Much like how criminals have long fabricated their own guns when they didn’t get them on the black market, Russia would simply continue to produce their own weapons for invasion.

Yes, the author wants demilitarization across the board, the proverbial act of beating swords into plowshares. Yet do you know what happens to those who beat their swords into plowshares?

They end up plowing for some jackwagon who doesn’t.

Talk of demilitarization and international gun control is Utopian nonsense. Yes, I’d love to live in a world without war, but conflicts are going to arise between nations. So long as that happens, militaries are going to exist.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with dreaming and desiring world peace. Most reasonable people want just that.

Where we have a problem is when you somehow think that international gun control laws might keep someone like Putin in check. Dreaming is fine, but to think for an instant that bad actors on the international stage will be more restrained than bad actors at the local level makes me question how you muster enough brainpower to breathe.