“The Enablers Of Death”: The NRA Has America Living Under The Gun
You might think Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of and spokesman for the mighty American gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, has an almost cosmic sense of timing. In 2007, at the NRA’s annual convention in St. Louis, he warned the crowd that, “Today, there is not one firearm owner whose freedom is secure.” Two days later, a young man opened fire on the campus of Virginia Tech, killing 32 students, staff and teachers.
Just last week LaPierre showed up at the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty here in New York and spoke out against what he called “anti-freedom policies that disregard American citizens’ right to self-defense.” Now at least 12 are dead in Aurora, Colorado, gunned down at a showing of the new film, “The Dark Knight Rises,” a Batman movie filled with make-believe violence. One of the guns the shooter reportedly used was an AK-47 type assault weapon that was banned in 1994. The NRA pressured Congress to let the ban run out in 2004.
Obviously, LaPierre’s timing isn’t cosmic, just coincidental and unfortunate; as Shakespeare famously wrote, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves. In other words, people — people with guns. There are some 300 million guns in the United States, one in four adult Americans owns at least one and most of them are men. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, over the last 30 years, “the number of states with a law that automatically approves licences to carry concealed weapons provided an applicant clears a criminal background check has risen from eight to 38.”
Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and perhaps as many as 300,000 gun-related assaults in the U.S. Firearm violence costs our country as much as $100 billion a year. Toys are regulated with greater care and safety concerns than guns.
So why do we always act so surprised? Violence is our alter ego, wired into our Stone Age brains, so intrinsic its toxic eruptions no longer shock, except momentarily when we hear of a mass shooting like this latest in Colorado. But this, too, will pass as the nation of the short attention span quickly finds the next thing to divert us from the hard realities of America in 2012.
We are a country which began with the forced subjugation into slavery of millions of Africans and the reliance on arms against Native Americans for its westward expansion. In truth, more settlers traveling the Oregon Trail died from accidental, self-inflicted gunshots wounds than Indian attacks – we were not only bloodthirsty but also inept.
Nonetheless, we have become so gun loving, so gun crazy, so blasé about home-grown violence that far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined. In Arizona last year, just days after the Gabby Giffords shooting, sales of the weapon used in the slaughter – a 9 millimeter Glock semi-automatic pistol – doubled.
We are fooling ourselves. Fooling ourselves that the law could allow even an inflamed lunatic to easily acquire murderous weapons and not expect murderous consequences. Fooling ourselves that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a “well-regulated militia” be construed as a God-given right to purchase and own just about any weapon of destruction you like, a license for murder and mayhem. A great fraud has entered our history.
Maybe you remember a video you can still see on YouTube. In it, Adam Gadahn, an American born member of al Qaeda, the first US citizen charged with treason since 1952, urges terrorists to carry out attacks on the United States. Right before your eyes he says, “America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check, and most likely, without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?”
The gunman in Colorado waited only for his opportunity. So there you have it – the arsenal of democracy has been transformed into the arsenal of death. And the NRA? The NRA is the enabler of death — paranoid, delusional and as venomous as a scorpion. With the weak-kneed acquiescence of our politicians, the National Rifle Association has turned the Second Amendment of the Constitution into a cruel and deadly hoax.
By: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, BillMoyers.com, July 20, 2012
“A Nation Of Skilled Crimestoppers”: We Should Keep Talking About Our Gun Laws
The wake of a massacre is exactly the right time.
When an event like the mass shooting in Colorado happens, it’s a fair bet that people on every side will take the opportunity to say, “See? This just reinforces what we’ve been telling you all along.” But that’s easier for some than others. I looked around some conservative web sites today to see what their reaction was, and much of it ran to this: Awful liberals are going to use this to push their anti-gun agenda, and they should be ashamed of themselves (see here or here). But is there really anything wrong with taking the events that occur in our country, even horrible ones, and making the connections to our policy and political choices? Isn’t that what people who write about politics are supposed to do?
Obviously, making those connections can be done in ways that are crass and inappropriate. But so can a discussion about anything. You can say we should talk about something else out of respect for the victims and their families, but the idea that the families’ grief might be lessened one iota if we refrained from discussing gun laws for a week or two is beyond ridiculous.
So here goes. This horrifying event demonstrates, as though we needed any demonstration, how removed from reality so many gun advocates are. When they push laws to allow gun owners to take their weapons anywhere and everywhere, they often paint a picture of a nation of skilled crime-stoppers, ready at a moment’s notice to cut down that psychopath before he has a chance to draw his weapon. But this is an absurd fantasy. Colorado is a state with lots and lots of gun owners, and it has a concealed-carry law that allows you to get a permit without too much trouble. We don’t know if anyone else in the theater had a gun on them, but even if they had, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Lots of gun owners imagine themselves to be some kind of Jack Bauer figure, who will see an event play out in slow motion while he calmly draws his weapon and delivers one perfectly aimed shot to save all the civilians. But that’s not how things work in real life. A mass shooting like this one is chaos. Things don’t happen in slow motion, and a few hours at the shooting range don’t turn you into Jack Bauer.
I wish I could say “This would never have happened if we had passed Law X.” But extremist Republicans and cowardly Democrats have guaranteed that our nation is and will continue for the foreseeable future to be awash in guns, about one for every man, woman, and child in the country. They’re easy to get and easy to amass. And if you’re angry or mentally ill or plenty of both, you won’t have much trouble putting together the arsenal that will enable you to vent your rage in the most spectacular and destructive way imaginable.
Around 30,000 Americans are killed with guns every year (the figure includes murders, suicides, and accidental deaths). Our political system has, in its wisdom, decided that that’s an acceptable price to pay for the “freedom” that isn’t enjoyed by people in England or France or Japan, where this kind of mass shooting is unknown. When it happens here—as it did last year and the year before that, and as it will next year and the year after that—nobody should act surprised.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 20, 2012
“Fanatics Gone Wild”: Free Guns, The Daily Caller’s Second Amendment Remedy Campaign
The Daily Caller, that bastion of faux journalism created by faux journalist and former bow-tie wearer Tucker Carlson, is giving away one gun every week until election day. Just in case the vote doesn’t go as elected, I suppose, Daily Caller readers will be able to exercise Second Amendment remedies, courtesy of the man who recently hosted convicted criminal and fraudster Jack Abramoff, saying he has “a decency I’m willing to vouch for.”
Via The Daily Caller:
The Daily Caller will be giving away one gun per week until Election Day – November 6, 2012.
The FMK9C1 is an American-made high capacity 9mm designed by Jim Pontillo and manufactured in
California. Each gun is engraved with the Bill of Rights and comes in one of three colors.To enter this week’s contest, simply sign up below to receive updates from The Daily Caller. Our DC
Morning emails are an informative and amusing way to keep up with the latest news.To enter the giveaway you must complete the form below agreeing to all terms and conditions associated with the contest.
I assume the “one of three colors” consist of red, white, and blue.
For those readers not intimately familiar with Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, last month a Daily Caller writer penned a piece lamenting how his bike was stolen, and — although he has absolutely no proof whatsoever — the thief must have been a black person.
Joe.My.God. notes that Tucker Carlson is a “proud gay-basher.”
In a very extensive report, Media Matters profiles the gun manufacturer. An excerpt:
The gun’s manufacturer, Jim Pontillo, has attacked American progressives for supposedly seeking to promote communism in America and claimed that “people calling for secession” are not “fanatics who hate America” but are instead acting “in the Founding tradition.”
This ad is currently running on the website’s NRA-sponsored “Guns and Gear” page: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/callerguns.jpg
Who knows, maybe the Susan G. Komen Foundation can go in on the deal and add a pink gun to the ”one of three colors”?
30,000 Americans are killed by guns each year. Tucker Carlson’s disgusting readership drive may backfire.
By: David badash, The New Civil Rights Movement, May 24, 2012
“A Stacked Deck”: Rick Scott’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Task Force All Supported The Law
Gov. Rick Scott has created a task force to review the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law, the law behind which George Zimmerman hid after shooting and killing unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. He revealed the members of the task force on Thursday, and it should come as no surprise that among the four legislators appointed, two belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council and that all four voted for the law.
One of the members, in fact, is state Rep. Dennis Baxley, who authored the law and who has said it doesn’t need to be changed. Among others:
– Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, co-sponsored and voted for Stand Your Ground. He told the Herald/Times bureau that he was instrumental in drafting the final language of the law as House Judiciary Committee chairman, and was Baxley’s roommate at the time.
– Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, joined the Legislature in 2010, and the first bill he passed was a controversial gun rights bill banning doctors from asking patients about gun ownership.
– Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, voted for the bill in 2005. It passed the Senate unanimously.
Baxley and Brodeur belong to ALEC, and ALEC used Baxley’s language for the template for bills passed all over the country. The 17-member task force also includes legal professionals including state prosecutors, church leaders and neighborhood watch voluteers. It doesn’t include a number of Democratic lawmakers and opponents of the law who appear to have been shut out of the selection process. Think Progress describes the selection committee:
Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll, who is also heading the task force, was a co-sponsor of the House bill and voted for it in 2005. As did fellow selection committee members Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speak Dean Cannon. Incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford was not in the legislature in 2005 when the law was passed, but is currently listed as a member of ALEC.”
According to this report, Carroll says the Democratic lawmakers didn’t apply to be on the task force. The Democrats all say that there was no announcement of an application process, and that their efforts to be included in the task force were ignored. Most disturbing is the point raised by Rep. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, who points out: “The governor failed to represent that diversity by neglecting to place a single South Florida lawmaker or mayor of a large city on the task force, in essence giving no voice to the regions of the state most often plagued by gun violence.”
Because of the lawmakers included in the group—those who would actually be responsible for making changes to the law—it seems to be stacked in favor of the law before it even gets off the ground.
By: Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, April 21, 2012
The Campus Carry Movement Stutter-Steps Across America
Last October, an email popped into my inbox from Mike Stollenwerk, co-founder of gun rights networking hub OpenCarry.org, which boasts the motto, “A right un-exercised is a right lost.” He was responding to a question I had about the possible re-tabling of a bill in the Texas legislature which would, if passed, allow students to carry handguns with them to college.
At the time, only Utah allowed the carrying of concealed weapons into the classrooms of public universities, while Colorado left it up to the colleges themselves to decide. Stollenwerk wrote: “My bet is that there are a fair number of college students and faculty members across America who, after the Virginia Tech murders, have decided to regularly carry loaded concealed handguns to class even when it violates college administrative rules … I hope campus carry is legalized in Texas soon.”
But faculty members weren’t as keen on their students packing heat during their lessons as Stollenwerk thought they might be. Last month, just as state senators were ready to send a bill to allow handguns on campus to a final vote, University of Texas (UT) Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa wrote a public letter to legislators saying the gun bill was a bad idea. And he had the public support of both the UT Faculty Counsel and Texas A&M University Faculty Senate. The result: the bill stalled in the Texas senate, lacking the two-thirds of votes needed to get it on to the floor.
But Sen. Jeff Wentworth, the Texas Republican who authored the bill, was persistent, and yesterday he managed to get it tacked on to a piece of education finance reform legislation which passed the state senate.
If the bill in Texas becomes law, some professors there have said they plan to include a clause in syllabi stipulating that students are not be permitted to carry guns into their classroom — and then simply refuse to teach classes where students don’t assent.
Campus-carry legislation was also on the move this spring in Arizona. Three weeks ago, the state’s conservative governor Jan Brewer vetoed a gun rights bill that had already made its way successfully through both houses, saying it was “poorly written” and that allowing guns to be carried in ‘public rights of way’ could have included K-12 schools — something prohibited under state and federal law.
But the hiccup in Arizona hasn’t stopped the movement to allow guns on campus gather momentum elsewhere. This year alone an astonishing 20 states have seen ‘guns on campus’ bills introduced (so far seven have failed).
The non-profit Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence points out that since the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, campus-carry legislation has been stymied 51 times in 27 states. But they shouldn’t sit back and breathe a sigh of relief just yet. In Arizona, Brewer has signaled that she’d consider future campus-carry legislation if it addressed her concerns.
The gun rights lobby is powerful — and persistent. And here’s a peculiar anomaly: that movement seems emboldened by the perception that President Obama is a “committed anti-gunner,” as the Gun Owners of America organization said during his initial run for president. This perceptions persists despite the fact that the Brady Campaign issued a report card last year failing him on all of the issues it considered important — including closing gun show loopholes and curbing trafficking.
In fact, since taking office, Obama has signed a law permitting guns to be taken into national parks and wildlife refuges and another allowing people to check guns as baggage on Amtrak. During a campaign speech in Virginia back in 2008 he declared: “I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won’t take your handgun away.” If anything, until now the Obama administration’s hands-off attitude toward gun control has paved the way for the campus-carry movement to flourish, while the misperception that he wants to take people’s guns away has been used as an effective tool to bolster support for Second Amendment groups.
The Brady Campaign’s Brian Malte told me that since his organization issued Obama an “F” on his report card for his first year in office, the president has made some steps in the right direction: a few weeks ago he wrote an op-ed piece for the Arizona Star newspaper in which he emphasized the need for failsafe background checks for gun owners. “An unbalanced man shouldn’t be able to buy a gun so easily,” he wrote. And he nominated Andrew Traver to head up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — a man who has been outspoken on gangs and weapon control, and whose nomination the NRA opposes.
But none of this is likely to have any effect on the lobby to push campus-carry legislation at the state level. And I don’t like the idea of anyone carrying a gun in public, let alone a 21-year-old student fueled by testosterone and alcohol. When I was at university in the mid-’90s, we drank far more than was good for us. Add guns to the mix and it’s a volatile concoction. When you think of it like that: giving guns to young students largely interested in sex and booze, I’d wager it seems less of a genius idea.
Angela Stroud, a PhD candidate at the University of Texas, has spent the last two years researching the social meanings of concealed handgun licensing. She’s conducted over 40 interviews and even took the handgun license test herself so she’d be more informed. She told me there are those opposed to guns who consider ‘what’s best for society’, and those who are pro-second amendment for whom the ‘greater good’ does not form part of their argument. “There is a major privileging of the individual,” she said. “And it’s a powerful experience to become enmeshed in this worldview. There’s a fear. Instead of saying that incidents like Virginia Tech rarely happen, they say that even a one-in-a-million chance of being murdered is a frightening thing. They see two major threats — one is a criminal who wants to kill you; the other is a government that wants to control you.”
For me, the argument that you could prevent another Virginia Tech with more guns is fatuous. Guns are designed for one thing only — and the more of them there are, the greater the chance of someone getting hurt. Texas Senator Rodney Ellis issued a statement saying the bill would do nothing to improve the safety of students on campus in his state and could, in fact, make dangerous situations more deadly by creating confusion for law enforcement. “We don’t need to incentivize campus Rambos,” he said.
I couldn’t agree more.
By: Alex Hannaford, The Atlantic, May 5, 2011
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