Sunday, December 23, 2012

The real problem is the NRA...


The NRA finally spoke out this week about what they see as the solution to gun violence. It amounts to getting more cigarettes into the hands of cancer patients. It is ridiculous and off putting to intelligent people as well as inflaming towards the families who have lost loved ones in this and other recent GUN attacks.

Putting guns in the schools is not a solution. It is a band aide for what ails. Us. Too much violence in our society, too easy access to weapons that are not needed and with ammunition clips that are far too voluminous to be of any use other than killing other humans.

A deer hunter never carries rounds of twenty-five plus rounds per clip into the deer stand. That would not be sport. And just so we are clear, we are not advocating the removal of anyone’s sports rifles from their homes. Nor their shotguns nor their hand guns, so long as none of these carry a magazine of more than six shots. And they are locked up in a gun safe. And they are registered and titled and must be each and every time they are sold or given as a gift, just a car is.

What the NRA did was shoot America the finger and say, “Fuck you America, we are bigger, stronger and better financed than you. So fuck you.”

Well, NRA, I’m afraid that this time, you are on the wrong side of history. You are about to go the way of the dinosaur. Hold on, it is going to be a bumpy and dreadfully ugly ride for you. And it may hurt quite a bit.  But you are going down.

We had hoped the NRA would, with some sound reasoning come out against assault weapons, (Which by the way, 60% of their member ship agree should be banned) and against the high capacity ammunition clips. It is just common sense. The idea of more guns in schools and public places is ridiculous. Ft. Hood where a massacre of 16 occurred is a military base full of armed personnel, so more guns in trained hands isn't the answer.


But the NRA and its head, Wayne LaPierre, do not seem blessed with even a modicum of common sense. Not even a small dose of it.

In fact, if you were an outside looking in, you would have witnessed their press conference and sworn that LaPierre was the crazy one — the nut case. The lunatic. Because he sounded like it. Just like Mike Huckabee and others did with claims that it was God’s revenge, or women’s fault, or any number of half-baked, half-cocked ideas to turn the argument away from the real problem. We have too many guns in our society. And we have too many crazies not getting proper mental health care.

When those two problems come together we get massacres like Sandy Hook. And America is tired of it. NRA, take notice, you are in our sites.

It is time to face the real problems.

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