Nice, shiny new president you have there. Congratulations, you must be very excited. Now, I know it’s easy to get carried away with the novelty of the whole thing. It’s hard not to feel a little tingly every time you get a whiff of that new-president smell. But please, I’m asking you nicely.

Don’t shoot this one.

I realize there’s something about young, progressive leaders that compels you to start oiling the gun collection. And really, what’s the point of having that really nice gun collection if you don’t blow something away with it once in a while? I get that, I really do. Go shoot a moose if you must, but leave the new guy alone. It’s a matter of conservation — an environmental issue, if you will. Progressive leaders are an endangered species. You nearly hunted them to extinction back in the ’60s, so don’t get all trigger happy now that there’s been a tiny surge in their numbers. I know there’s something about their dynamic presence that makes you go, “I gots to shoot me one of those,” but please, resist the urge.

If you absolutely must shoot a president, why not try one of the old broken down ex-presidents still out there, roaming majestically across the plains of middle America? Thin that herd. I know they don’t offer the same thrill of the hunt. Once the Secret Service isn’t watching their every move, it hardly seems sporting. But really, you’d be doing them a favour, putting them out of their misery before they write any more tedious memoirs or do another Larry King interview. It’s not like they have much left to offer. Mostly they just play golf, run the clock down, and dream of a revisionist legacy that will place them among the great presidents rather than the caretaker presidents like whats-his-face-from-history-class and that-old-dude-they-put-on-a-stamp-once. Shooting one would be a mercy. Hell, shoot two or three while you’re at it. Get it out of your system.

I’ll make you a deal. As one neighbour country to another. You guys lay off shooting the new guy for a term or two, and we’ll do our very best to get our newscasters to start pronouncing his name correctly. Maybe at the end of four years, certainly by the end of eight, they’ll have all sorted out which A’s are long-A’s and which are short-A’s. Just give them the time. Four to eight years, tops. Then maybe you can pick out a nice gun for yourself and line up a shot before the Larry King bookers come calling about that eighth or ninth memoir he’s been writing during lulls on the putting green.