Instead of all the needless nattering about guns and bullets, there is a public safety issue that the states and the federal government could actually do something about. I refer to prisons. Why aren’t we building more and bigger ones?

Maybe it’s just me, but that seems a lot more sensible than releasing felons because some pinheaded bureaucrat decides we should be overly concerned about the discomfort of robbers, rapists and murderers. I mean, these are the most vicious of the vicious, and we’re treating them like guests at a hotel.

I even know how we could start funding construction of new prisons. I suggest we simply stop providing prisoners with gymnasiums, TV sets and sex change operations. They did not, after all, go on a TV game show and win 10-20 years at a Marriott.

Another way to help cover the cost is to sell naming rights to corporate sponsors, just the way they do with stadiums and arenas. All by themselves, rap music record companies could easily re-christen the likes of Leavenworth, Attica, Soledad, Folsom and Sing-Sing. And, what’s more, the new monikers would be far more fitting once you realize that among the major labels are Asylum, Bad Boys, Gangsta Advisory, Captivity, Psychopathic, Low Life and Konvict Muzik.

Also, unlike sporting venues, where the payoff to the corporation ebbs and flows with the fortunes of the teams, the nice thing about having your company’s name attached to a penitentiary is that people will always be grateful to be reminded that those walls are keeping them safe from the human vermin inside.

Getting back to guns for a moment, Harry Reid admitted that Dianne Feinstein, even with 55 Democrats in the Senate, wouldn’t be able to muster even 40 votes in support of her bill to eviscerate the Second Amendment. But rather than force those 15 or 20 Democrats to cast votes in opposition to Obama or face the ire of the NRA in 2014 and beyond, McConnell and his Republican colleagues threatened a filibuster if the bill was brought to the floor. The question that comes to mind is just how stupid are they?

Is it possible that because Rand Paul got so much attention for filibustering John Brennan’s appointment to head up the CIA, Republican lunkheads have decided that they will now filibuster against everything except a pay raise?

Speaking of Obama, I found it amusing that he recently got in hot water for complimenting California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris on her looks. Now if he’d gotten an earful from Michelle, I might have understood it. But, instead, he caught hell from a coven of feminists who treated the poor schnook as if he’d referred to Mrs. Harris as a broad, a dame or a skirt. According to these harridans, by commenting on her looks, Obama was turning the clock back by several decades. You would have thought he was campaigning to reverse the 19th Amendment, denying women the right to vote.

I would have loved to have listened in on his apology to the woman. What could he say? “Hi, Kamala, it’s Barack. I just wanted to call and assure you that I didn’t mean it when I said you were good-looking.”

Because it always annoys me when I hear people refer to a federal judge who delivers a stupid ruling without naming the schmuck, as if the ruling came down from the Mount, I always try to track him down. In the case of the decision to make Plan B, the so-called day-after contraceptive pill, available without a prescription and without age restrictions, the dunderhead was Federal District Court Judge Edward Korman. It was he who decided that girls as young as 11 or 12 should be able to go into a drug store and buy a comic book, a candy bar and contraception off the shelf. No big surprise. After all, that’s the sort of nonsense that federal judges do on a regular basis. What I was surprised to discover was that Korman was first appointed by Ronald Reagan.

But I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised. After all, when guys like Clinton and Obama appoint justices to the Supreme Court, it’s always someone like Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor. Good old-fashioned left-wing ideologues. But when it’s time for the likes of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush, to handle it, it’s just as likely – make that more likely – to be a Brennan, Burger, Blackmun, Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter, as it is to be a Scalia or Thomas.

So, whereas the Democrats vet their judicial appointments to within an inch of their lives, knowing that the Court will be their lasting legacy, the Republicans seem content to pick their names out of a cap. And a dunce cap, at that.

Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013. R.I.P.

Author’s Note: Although I’m still seeking sponsors, my online radio show is on the air, every Wednesday, at 1 p.m. That’s L.A. time. Access www.latalkradio.com, channel 1, and click on Listen Live. You can also download to your iPhone or Android apps. The call-in number is (323)203-0815. I’d like to hear your questions and comments, pro or con. Especially pro.