The NRA is a good example…
…of what’s wrong with American government. Who makes the laws of the land? The lobbyists and special interests, that’s who! We don’t have single payer health insurance and universal health coverage because of the demands of health insurance and pharmaceutical companies and all the healthcare industry—AMA, hospitals, clinics, doctors, and nurses. Every special interest pressures Congress, the executive branch, and, increasingly, the judicial system, especially Wall Street and other corporate lawyers. But the special interest group that screams the loudest, puts its money where its big mouth is, and effectively makes 90% of the American public their slaves is the NRA.
Yes, stats are out: about 90% of every public sector—whites, blacks, Hispanics, women, men—are for at least extensive background checks. You’d think that would guarantee passage of something. We just commemorated the death of Martin Luther King. I saw recently a clip of RFK announcing his death—Bobby died a few months later. James Brady took a bullet meant for Ronald Reagan thirty-two years ago. Four months ago, we lived through the Newtown massacre. Over a span of thirty plus years, America has proven that it’s addicted to guns. Thirty plus years and no significant change! If anything, our leaders kiss the butts of the NRA hierarchy now even more as vast sums of money pour into campaign coffers and the Association campaigns against any candidate that dares to attack them.
Whoa! You say, “Didn’t the Senate just pass a new and tougher background checks law?” Sure they did. There was even the traditional conservative threat of a filibuster that fizzled. If you’re a gun control advocate, though, you shouldn’t start dancing in front of your house in glee. First, there’s very little chance that such a law will pass the House. Harry Reid can push some Republicans around in the Senate enough to get something through on occasion, and Mitch McConnell, the man who sees bugging his meetings as a bigger issue than planning on viciously attacking anyone who opposes him in said meetings, can smile in virtual defeat, because he knows the House will come through and squash anything that Mr. Obama supports. Second, this is the baby part of what gun control advocates, i.e. 90% of Americans, want. The stronger parts deal with limiting automatic weapons and high capacity cartridges. There’s no chance that this will even get through the Senate. So forget what the media say–we don’t have a victory for gun control, and never will.
It’s obscene that the NRA claims to protect democracy via the Second Amendment. BS! It’s the number one special interest group that is destroying democracy. It promotes fascism at the very least and anarchy at the worst. Heston’s slogan “Over my dead body!” might as well be followed by a Hitlerian salute. It’s laughable that they think automatic weapons and multi-bullet magazines are needed for sport. What sport? Black-on-black violence? Cop killing? Bank robbing? Giving cartel members a legal path to citizenship by way of force? Where’s the outrage? Where’s the common sense? It’s there—but the NRA has the money to overwhelm it! They own our lawmakers.
The number of families owning guns is down. The number of guns per capita is up. How does that make sense? Just consider what happened after the Newtown massacre. Buyers rushed out in mass hysteria, even in Connecticut, buying exactly the same automatic weapon the Newtown shooter used and purchasing high capacity clips, all in the fear that their precious gun-owning rights would be infringed upon. It’s not families who own guns—it’s fanatics. Gun-crazy fanatics, knuckle-dragging hirsute types from the NRA leaders on down to beer-drinking blowhards, who own veritable arsenals of weapons, ammo, and bullet-proof vests along with other militaristic accoutrements they don’t often advertise they have stashed away—bayonets, knives, grenades, camouflage outfits, and so on. These are the apes I’m afraid of because they will shoot first and ask questions later—and they have all the weapons, not the American public.
The archetype gun fanatic is like the survivalist in the movie Tremors. Take a look. If you’re not a fanatic, you might laugh before you recognize friends and neighbors. If you’re a fanatic, see yourself in the mirror. Your average fanatic is dedicated to overkill, distrusts authority, adores strong, fascist leaders, and thinks of his guns as an extension of his manhood. Guns dominate his thoughts, if you can consider such a subservient zombie to the NRA a thinking individual. American politics is in sorry state when you consider all our leaders who are in this same class of gun fanatics because they have sold their souls to the NRA. You just hope that their Faustian bargain with the Association will come back to haunt them someway, somehow, someday, because they surely deserve it.
Don’t even think that any kind of gun control will get through Congress. It’s impossible as long as the NRA is around. James Brady, Gabby Giffords, and countless other victims, their families, and friends need to steel themselves against that sad fact. Money speaks at all levels of government, but the NRA is an example where it speaks loud and clear at the national level. American voters are not in charge of their own destiny. Lobbyists and special interests are in charge. And the NRA is the most egregious practitioner around.
The only thing I can suggest to those who worry about gun control: Move to Connecticut. They will have tougher gun control laws than any state in the union, much tougher than anything the NRA lackeys in the U.S. Congress will ever come up with. New York State isn’t too bad either, along with a few others. Yes, move to Connecticut, and don’t visit any other place where gun laws are weak or are written to encourage gun carrying (Texas, for example). There are many reasons to avoid these other states anyway—they’re usually associated with voting ID and other restrictions on voting, for example—about as undemocratic as you can get. Stay away from them—they’re like exposing yourself to bird flu.
Mr. Obama shouldn’t waste his time either. Maybe he’s just practicing his oratory, but promoting tough gun control laws at the national level is a waste of time. You can’t even shame Congress because they enjoy the NRA support so much. The President should apply his speaking abilities in more productive venues. Sure, he’s a lame duck prez, but bucking the NRA is like tilting at windmills. That music is appropriate though. 90% of the American public, including Mr. Obama, is dreaming “the impossible dream” of reasonable gun control. It just isn’t going to happen! B-to-b-to-b-to-b, that’s all, folks!
And so it goes….
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