Here's a message for people who collect guns: Collect something else.

I collect pipes. I've got 103 of them, and I smoke them all. My wife collects teacups. You can kill someone with either a pipe or a teacup but it takes a lot of work, and you invariably break your collectible pipe/teacup in the process.

And before you start writing your intense, patriotic hate letter, let me point out that I used to hunt, I've owned guns and I was a reasonably good shot.

Why should you collect something besides guns?

Because, frankly, it makes you look like a freak job. You live in a suburb that's so peaceful you can't rustle up a fight in the bar down at the Applebee's and you, ya camo-wearing nut, you got six pistols, three shotguns, four rifles and two machine guns.

And you won't shut up about it, either.

I'm walking down the street with you and I see a bird on a telephone pole, maybe two blocks down.

"Is that a crow?" I ask.

"I don't know," you say, going all squinty-eyed. "I'll tell you one thing though, if I had my AR-15, I could blow it to hell, and you could get a real good look."

Freak job.

And, Jesus, would you stop defending our ownership of 19 guns with a copy of the Constitution.

The other day, a heavily armed acquaintance told me he never goes anywhere without his pocket-sized copy of the Constitution so he can, "beat the liberals with facts."

Let me tell you something, if you carry a copy of the same book with you every day, and it's the only book you read, and you quote it to people so you can beat them in arguments, you're a freak job. I don't care if that book is he Holy Bible, the Quran, the Constitution, an auto parts catalogue or the poetry of Maya Angelou.

And it's not like I don't want you to read. Hell, no. I want you to read. I want you to read three or four books, a dozen, several hundred books. Can you tell I collect books, too?

And don't go on about how you're fully skilled in the art of killing people because you took a class in handgun self-defense.

I've been a reporter for 31 years and I can tell you for free that it takes zero skill to kill someone with a gun. In my years as a reporter, most of the gun killing I've seen has been done by people who were drunk/high/stupid/deranged or shaking all over from withdrawal. Do guns kill people? Argue all you want but one thing is certain, untrained idiots who have never taken a class in their lives kill people with guns and they do a damn fine job of it, too.

Look, I don't want to take away your guns. What I want you to do is not buy 47 guns. And please, stop thinking that gun ownership is patriotism. You can't buy love of country. You can buy a gun. And nothing you buy with money is ever as good as what you grow in your heart.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's book of Pulitzer Prize-nominated column, "Between Wealth and Welfare: A Liberal Curmudgeon in America," is available for Nook and Kindle.