Today In Surgery

Dog Blog's shyest member, Carle Steel, sent me a link to this story about North America's first succesful face transplant. (Thanks Carl). The article is interesting mostly as a portrait of the amazing recipient, a woman who lost most of her face after her husband blasted her with a shotgun.

Read the Associated Press story for the feel-good (well, as good as possible) humanity, but maybe do me a favour and remember it the next time you hear some libertarian asshole say there shouldn't be any restrictions on the purchase or ownership of firearms. I'm not opposed to collectors and hobbyists keeping guns, I don't want to take rifles away from farmers and hunters, and I recognize that some of the gun laws in this country might need tweaking. But Jebus Cripes, there are just flat out too many guns out there, and everytime a gun-owning family goes into crisis (a polite way of saying another man goes mental) there's a danger someone will get shot in the face.

And at the risk of sounding like a looney radical, I'm opposed to people being shot in the face.

For people living in cities and suburbs, guns should not be regarded as "household items". They should NEVER be sold in malls, department stores and grocery shops.

Ninety-nine per cent of people have no business owning guns. End of story. Don't shoot the messenger.