TVSquad

There are a lot of really horrible things that have put America on the map: Jerry Springer, our ability to infuse anything edible with cheese, the fact that we're probably working on infusing something inedible with cheese.

Guns, however, shouldn't be one of them. The Second Amendment stands as one of many great testaments to the idea of freedom that our forefathers envisioned for their people. They felt a government should trust their people with great responsibility if they truly believed in the concept of freedom and democracy.

Sure, if they came to the present and saw that we primarily use that responsibility for hunting moose from helicopters and negotiating with the Domino's guy they might take it right back, but the idea is what's important.

So to celebrate one of America's latest of many birthday to come because fireworks are technically illegal in my neck of the woods, here are your TV's seven greatest guns.

7. Fiona Glenanne's Walther PPK (Burn Notice)
If you're going to play the spy game, you'd better have the right joystick and nothing works better than James Bond's gun of choice. This sleek semiautomatic pistol may look as sleek and slender hand that's gripping it, but it packs a mean punch if you rub it the wrong way. This is one girl who better be able to see both of your hands during every dance, or you might not get one of them back.

6. Vic Mackey's Smith and Wesson (The Shield)
If you're the kind of guy who likes to get the job done without having to waste expensive, city funded bullets, the Strike Team leader's hand cannon of choice can bring the toughest gangbanger to their knees with a flick of the boomstick. Mackey seems to favor the Smith and Wesson (Smith and Wesson are also the nicknames I give my bulging arms, left and right respectively), even up until that silent, memorable ending where it was the only thing he had left in the world that he could trust.

5. Stephen Colbert's .38 Special (The Colbert Report)
Some gun lovers pick their favorite side arm. For others, their side arm picks them. Colbert's "Sweetness" has never left the side of his arm since he started the show and "Sweetness" has never let him down. She has a special kinship with Stephen in the same way a young boy has an imaginary friend who tells him to kill people in their sleep. Stephen would probably marry Sweetness if it the Bible allowed it.

4. Maxwell Smart's Three-Way-Gun (Get Smart)
What's better than one gun? How about two more that are attached to the same trigger and pointed in perpendicular directions? Agent 86 never seemed to stick a single gun since the boys in the lab could hide in a firearm in everything from a hairbrush to a violin. This triple-threat helped Smart escape him and an old Army buddy played by Don Rickles escape from three KAOS agents in a single, er, triple shot.

3. Rick Hunter's Desert Eagle (Hunter)
This rulebook-breaking homicide detective doesn't just use a Desert Eagle because it can blow away the rulebook in a single shot. It holds more sentimental power than firepower. His Mafia grandfather gave him the gun as a graduation gift, so it seems only fitting that a gun given by a criminal should be use to stamp it out. That and because it can blow a hole in a Buick LaSabre that's parked on the other end of a brick wall.

2. Sledge Hammer's Magnum (Sledge Hammer!)
The San Francisco Police Inspector had more guns in his arsenal than most Bolivian warlords, but his favorite firearm was his custom built ivory handle .44 Magnum. It was the Starsky to his Hutch, the Jake to his Fatman, the Kate to his Allie. He blows away no-good-yogurt-eatin' creeps with it. He talks to it. He even (ick) sleeps with it. Maybe we shouldn't be that sad that the show didn't make it to season three.

1. Captain Kirk's phaser (Star Trek)
Your goal might to be explore new worlds, seek out new civilizations and unite the galaxy through a message of peace and hope, but you can't achieve peace without shooting a few people who get in the way of the peace. And just to please the gun control crowd, it comes with a stun feature that temporarily paralyzes its victims to prevent the unnecessary threat to innocent life. Unless that innocent life happens to be a hot alien babe in need of some deep space exploration. Then it's set phasers to kill.