A lot of the time when looking through the news I have to do so with a filter—sometimes to look through news that is less-than-credible, sometimes to look past things that are generally irrelevant and sometimes to straight-up ignore the things that are.

On Wednesday's Rush Limbaugh show, after a lengthy treatise on elitism that endorsed the already-tired NRA attack ad that claims that the President's children are more important that yours by virtue of the armed guards that protect them, Limbaugh got into the topic of gun control with a caller. The call wandered over to the subject of abortion. I've excerpted a partial transcript of it below; click through for the full version:

CALLER: ...It's just terrible that 26 people died in Sandy Hook and 20 of them were children. Terrible. Very sad, coming up to Christmas. Hopes and dreams the young children had, their parents and weddings and congratulations that will never occur. However, on any given day in America, more than 3,000 children are killed from abortion, and we have no problems with that. We're okay with that; it's not an issue.

You can't spend 40 years telling people and telling children that if I make a mistake — if something comes up and this child that I don't want is in the way of my future and the way of me graduating high school, is in the way of me going to college, is the way of me being happy, is in the way of whatever I want out of life — then it's okay for me to kill the baby. But later on when I become a disgruntled employee, when I become an unhappy student at school because children are bullying me, then I want to eliminate them to get them out of the way? It's the same concept.

RUSH: Well, it's a good point. You know how to stop abortion? Require that each one occur with a gun.

Sorry, what?

We can debate all day about the morality of abortions and not get anywhere, so at the very least, let's agree the Supreme Court has established they're legal medical procedures that a woman can choose to have by virtue of having ownership of her own body. There. Done.

Now that we have that out of the way, what Limbaugh and his caller have done is put the commission of abortions on equal footing with the killing of elementary school kids—claiming that you may as well put a gun in the hand of an abortion provider, because why the hell not? They're snuffing a life out, may as well expedite the process, right?

Sure, makes sense; if you're the kind of idiot that thinks that using a chainsaw to give a haircut makes sense because it cuts faster.

Listen: Those having voluntary abortions have decided that, for one reason or another, they didn't feel that a child should be brought into the world. Making that choice, which isn't always an easy one, is their right. The doctors performing those procedures are doing so because they agree with that right.

But it in no way compares with the deaths of living children, who were happily brought into the world and whose parents had grand dreams for them; dreams that were dashed by someone who decided that they needed a gun to solve whatever problems they think they had.

To say that those things are comparable isn't just wrong, and isn't just stupid — it's irresponsible. It paints knowledgeable, trained individuals with the same brush as mentally-ill killers, oversimplifying multiple issues in the name of causing a scene—which is exactly what Limbaugh wants.

He's the kind of man who never misses an opportunity to piss someone off; he's little more than a message board troll with a microphone, and to be honest, I'm not sure he was ever much more than that. But somehow, this troll amassed an audience that hangs on his every self-important word, creating a legion of Dittoheads (his word, not mine) that somehow find him brilliant.

He's not. Hell, in the days of 24/7 cable news and message boards, he's barely relevant. His entertainment value is comparable to that of a slow-motion train wreck, and he damn sure isn't worth any more time than it would take to scrape mud off of your shoes.

After this particularly outlandish bit of stupidity, I'm done paying attention to Limbaugh, in any way, shape or form. If you value your brain cells, hopefully you're done, too.