Facebook and Twitter for the NRA has been shut down. I suppose there’s nothing to say in polite (or even internet) company these days about lobbying for semiautomatic weaponry and armor-piercing ammunition.
My own history is that my dad owned a handgun but none of us kids ever knew where he kept it. For awhile, he owned a few rifles and he took me target shooting a few times. After a few years he sold off the guns. I don’t think my mother approved. But guns were no big deal, really.
This Newtown shooter had firearms that were a bit more advanced than point-shoot-reload. There’s really not any defense for such objects. I mean: how many rounds does it take to kill a deer or rabbit? I wonder if their manufacture and sale isn’t driven by the American consumer indulgence for acquisition. I mean: what other goal could the NRA possibly have? It’s got to be about buying more and more weapons that one won’t ever use. Remember, the odds are still five in six that a home handgun will kill a family member before it stops an intruder.
Any speculation on when the NRA starts a comeback?
19 December 2012 at 8:01 am
I grew up around guns; I have no interest in them. My father, and this was in the 60′s, was adamant that all ammo should be locked in one safe, the guns in another. So in the event of a home invasion gone wrong, there would be no gunfire from dad.
If people want to hunt – then hunt. But weapons meant for mass killing, as you note, why?
I am the recipient of many, many emails of a certain nature here at work. I’m not sure how or why they were once subscribed to. Mostly I delete them en masse. However, I often read the stunningly pro-life and pro-gun ones out of curiosity. It seems to me that people of a certain mindset think that they need all the guns they can get to defend themselves from the government. You see, the overreaching government is literally (to them anyway) only steps away from a complete totalitarian takeover. I guess that they are afraid they will have to share what “they earned” or made themselves with the lazy poor people or the Kenyan usurper will do something truly more awful. I’m sorry for the overarching sarcasm, but there is a reason that gun sales have shot up each year since President Obama was elected. Get ‘em while you can.
Yesterday I had a very thoughtful conversation on Facebook, both on the page and via email, with a former work associate from the corporate world. She and her husband live in Oklahoma and between them own over 20 guns. She does not believe that changing legislation will change things, but she does believe in reasonable conversations with others who see differently. Sadly, from both sides, we see very little of that.
Sorry for the long comment; I hope this does not look like a hijacking of the thread. I’m just so frustrated and so sad.
19 December 2012 at 11:06 am
Okay, I’ll play along with your blind men defining an elephant premise, tho’ it’s virtually worth zero gain/loss.
You’re motivated to single out “silence” from the NRA as meaningful to bolster what? Oh, your point about assault weapons and handguns. (Forget trying to ask any agency to actually define what an “assault” weapon actually is in that firearms are now generally semi-automatics.)
Are you, being from Kansas City for a while, also concerned that sports columnist Jason Whitlock (whom I respect greatly) couldn’t resist the “conspiracy nut” theory that the government literally funnels such weapons into African American enclaves (presumably along with AIDS, syphillis, recreational drugs, and maybe the zombie pathogen soon) in order to foment Malthusian self-immolation? And I know that didn’t get too much traction in the cycle, but was his foot in his mouth still when an autistic young man in the idyllic Walden pond known as Newtown used the same weapons to slaughter the innocents? Did Whitlock identify Adam’s mom as a government agent? Did he ask Rahm Immanuel about how exactly taking those weapons off of gun store shelves would lower the monthly death toll of murders by such weapons in Chicago alone?
Speaking of government conspiracies, explain to me like I was a four year old how Attny. General Holder’s incredible ability to stonewall and never have his feet put to the fire about Operation Fast and Furious’ tragic outcomes, and how that strategy has “played out” thus far?
The government, time and time again has proven in terms of protecting the public that they really have no idea (which isn’t really their fault) how exactly to protect the public. The previous assault weapons ban that lasted a decade didn’t make a dent. So, pardon the pun, but they are literally the gang that can’t shoot straight.
But the criminals and sociopaths aren’t better shots either. They just fire indiscriminately or at captive targets until….
Silence from the NRA? I’m not the NRA nor a proponet of theirs, but implied criticism of them for that when perhaps they should be respected for not muddying the waters, seems illogical and ill-considered.
19 December 2012 at 11:34 am
PS. Another flawed notion occurs- was the second amendment, on the heels of the first, about the “one shot” theorem of downing a deer or rabbit? Really?
19 December 2012 at 11:41 am
PSS
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/12/in-defense-of-silence-over-gunmen.html
19 December 2012 at 12:27 pm
Thanks for the comments. I admit less fascination with celeb commentary on this, political, or Jason, who is indeed a fine writer. I’m just wondering when the NRA was going to speak up. And it seems they have.
On the rabbit front, they go scooting when I pull in the driveway. I doubt I could hit one (though my dad said I was a pretty good shot) in the time it would take me to pull off a second shot from his .22 rifle.
So my commentary is really more along the lines of why would a person want to buy a semiautomatic weapon in the first place?
19 December 2012 at 9:47 pm
When I was in the military the standard joke was around the rube who kept calling his rifle a gun. So this little ditty was to help him tell the difference:
This is my rifle, and this is my gun.
This is for fighting and this is for fun.
I think a lot of white males have taken to using their rifle because their gun is less than adequate.
19 December 2012 at 9:45 pm
Jeffrey Toobin elaborates on the change in emphases by the SCOTUS on the features of the 2nd Amendment:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html