WELL - is the National Rifle Association laughing or crying this month? Mixed emotions abound. Do we side with the gun control people and state with utter conviction that if the Vice-President of the USA can't be safe with a hunting rifle then who could be? or does one become a Second Amendment advocate given that the victim was a trial lawyer?

I am told there are some 138,000 hunting licenses issued annually in the USA and an average of only 30 victims of shooting accidents ? if they are all lawyers, then maybe this is Mother Nature's way of redressing the balance in litigation-happy America! I wish we had hunting here. Then maybe our politicians would accidentally start shooting one another in another Mother Nature-choreographed effort at restoring the natural order.

The whole Dick Cheyney situatioon boggles the mind and I bet even many lawyer-lobbyists for the gun manufacturers for the first time ever are facing a moral dilemma. Do you know that there are some 550 million firearms in circulation today? This means that there's one for every 12 people in the planet. Now the only question that remains is how to arm the other 11, according to Nicholas Cage in a very clever satire on the armaments industry. That kind of cynicism seems to appeal greatly to me in these dreadful days with the current state of the nation - and I refer to both our large neighbour to the West and our own scandal-plagued island.

I suppose the sane, mainstream voters in Bermuda don't listen to Colonel David Burch's radio show - but I did a few Sundays ago. And it was no surprise to hear Burch metaphorically shoot himself in the foot even with the 14-second tape delay. Now that takes quite a bit of talent! The format of this night's show involved Burch reading some of his past opinion pieces until phones began to ring, at which point some caller would get to voice his or her opinion as long as it actually concurred with that of the militant martinet. The first editorial set the stage for the poison that was to be spewed with a mean spirited and politically na?ve rant on Sir John Swan.

Predictably the phone lines remained silent as no one wished to jump on Burch's bilious bandwagon and we, the audience, were subjected to another editorial. After another deafening silence from the phone lines, I was highly amused to listen to a November, 2005 piece he had composed on the subject of respect.

Burch bemoaned the lack of respect accorded to presumably him and certain of his Progressive Labour Party colleagues now they warrant honorific titles such as "The Honourable" being bestowed upon them by virtue of winning an election. Personally I can immediately come up with a number of individuals where that's the last description that springs to mind when considering their behaviour! In fact, I can only assume that the Colonel would strenuously object to my references to him as "Burch" instead of by his rather long-winded and somewhat unearned (certainly unelected) series of titles. Well, the irony of all this was certainly not lost on at least one male Bermudian caller who made his astonishment clear when he asked how the Colonel could talk about this lack of respect on the one hand while dubbing black people aligned with the Opposition party "house niggers". Of course, Burch had no answer for the astute caller and did what he always does when faced with his own hypocrisy ? he hung up on the man, thereby demonstrating his own inability to show respect.

Burch has coined his own disrespectful monikers for and this newspaper, namely, "the daily rag" and "its evil twin sister", respectively?.yes, folks, another blatant act of hypocrisy. However, one must always look at things positively and realise that any endorsement by this man would amount to the kiss of death in terms of the papers' reputations for objectivity. These publications simply refuse to take dictation from politicians on bended knee and this paper, in particular, can be credited with bringing to light all manner of crimes against the Bermudian people through time-consuming investigative reporting.

Please note that not one libel case has been successfully pursued against these news sources despite the best efforts of Burch, Scott and their inner circle. Sadly, though, these checks on abuse of public power by the Fourth Estate have brought them little in the way of thanks from the Bermudian people they serve. The only regular feedback the newspapers seem to get are the occasional cowardly (and, of course, anonymous) threats delivered via email and telephone - which can be traced these days thanks to ongoing l innovations in digital technology.

So some of these mud-slingers (including, I believe, a number on the Government payroll) ain't quite as anonymous as they like to think.