Happiness is a warm [laser] gun.

Richard and I were watching Back to the Future II for the eighth time in four days (gotta love the variety of programming that 12 HBO channels offers,) and talking about its depiction of the future. For those of you who lacked a childhood, Back to the Future II is the flawless sequel to one of the best films ever made about time travel. This time around, Doc and Marty take the Delorean to the year 2015, which is pretty much the late 80's with a bunch of future clichés thrown in. You know, flying cars, video phones, holograms, etc.

A lifetime of watching movies like this has made me a little disappointed of the future that we live in. Sure, we have the Internet in our pockets, PS3s, and cardboard boxes that pop up fresh tissues each time you pull one out, but there's still stuff that's lacking. Wouldn't you guys like to see food pellets that are adequate substitutes for full meals? Conveyor belt sidewalks? Robot companions? Cities in the sky?

Personally, the future innovation that I'm most disappointed about still not coming to fruition is the laser gun, or if you're old school--the ray gun. Campy sci-fi pulp dating back 60 and 70 years featured images of spacemen wielding weapons that emitted not bullets, but lasers or concentric circles of light. Now, I'm not a weapons enthusiast by any means. I don't belong to the NRA and I could give a fuck less about the recent passing of their biggest celebrity member and bible film star Charlton Heston . . . but I want to live in a world where laser guns exist! A world where gangsters carry electric "gats" instead "9's" and shootouts are more like Hoth than South Central Los Angeles.

The second amendment has gotten stale. As long as guns are mechanical, gun powder-filled, bullet holding contraptions, I'm boycotting weapons all together. The future is now!