Some regular readers may recall more than a couple of instances when I have rhetorically alluded to “stacking up the bodies” in reference to government deregulating industry with reckless abandon. Even as you read this the stack of bodies from American mass shootings continues to grow. To remain positive while writing this I really have to lower the bar. It is still February and at least firearm fatalities are not yet into three figures (as of this posting) for 2018. That particular statistic comes from the media-supplied Mass Shooting Tracker. How telling is it that any media organization must maintain such a sophisticated data base just to provide the public with an accurate count of how many lives end, regardless of circumstance, as a result of the use of one product?
Few industries in the history of the United States have rated the unconditional favor of Congress the way firearms manufacturers have. I cannot think of one sector of industry that has had specific legislation passed to prohibit litigation against it when its products are used in crimes. How many other business interests have had sustained success in preventing federally mandated scientific research into the destructive effects of their products? I vividly remember the public showdown Congress had with Big Tobacco some years ago with multiple tobacco CEO’s lying under oath in solidarity with their product and how that eventually led to the end of that industry’s Congressional gravy train. We are hopefully on the precipice of another such moment. The sobering fact is that the aforementioned stack of bodies is still getting higher.
Image by DailyKosHow many other industries have had its own non-profit marketing arm of some five million members? The National Rifle Association has helped the firearms industry capitalize on an already existing gun culture largely through fearmongering. I received a robocall from Wayne LaPierre himself back in 2011 warning me of President Obama’s intent to allow the U.N. to come into the U.S.A and collect everyone’s personal firearms. After hearing LaPierre’s two minute canned screed, I was able to shut down the human phone banker who came on the line asking me for money with one query. I asked him to recite the 2nd Amendment. He, like so many other pro-gun types, laid an egg. Even still, no conspiracy theory has been off limits in the quest to gin up fear for gun owners getting them to open their wallets to counter all manner of over-the-top bogeymen coming for their guns. The NRA was not always an industry marketing organization. It began with a noble purpose in the years following the late War between the States. Since announcing its backing of a Presidential candidate in 1980, it has become the unabashed #1 promoter of gun rights and the de facto chief defender of the 2nd Amendment.
The NRA holds bought and paid for clout in the Congress and wields it mercilessly. Over the past forty years it has gained the ability to write it’s own ticket, and write it’s own ticket it has through bullying, scaremongering and of course money. Lots of money.
In too many Congressional Districts the democratically elected representative is too cowed by the NRA such that any ideation toward reasonable discussion on reigning in access to assault weapons or more stringent background checks for firearm purchases are avoided and usually outright ignored so they won’t risk being tarred as a “gun grabber on their way to repeal the 2nd Amendment!” This is why most of the NRA “A” rated incumbents readily offer “thoughts & prayers” after mass shootings but no real substantive discourse and certainly no action on decreasing the number of available firearms. The organization’s endorsement has become a fixture in just about all legislative campaigns in rural and conservative districts. To receive less than an “A” rating by the NRA often causes a candidate’s odds of winning an election to drop significantly. Indeed, Congress does not evaluate and contain the NRA. The NRA grades and contains Congress! That is an awful lot of power wielded by an organization with a national membership of a mere five million.
The body count may continue to increase but for some reason the latest mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida has emerged as the salient mark on the continuum where the American public seems to have finally reached the necessary saturation point. As powerful of a hold that NRA donor money may have on elected politicians, enough people may have been moved to action to reach the required critical mass to matter. I am hopeful the gun lobby’s influence may at least be muted as the midterm campaign cycle gets underway. What’s more, the emergence of youth activists, the ground swell of teenaged agents of change who have survived the Parkland shooting and who are still reeling from the loss of friends, is getting noticed. Florida Senator Marco Rubio found himself on the receiving end of a very pointed question from one of them regarding his acceptance of NRA money going forward and was unable to render a simple response. I will give the Senator credit for showing up. Also, the guy can tap dance with the best of ’em.
Survivor to Rubio: Will you reject NRA money?
This moment in America has a genuine transformative feel to it. Of course not everyone but certainly enough people to matter are hopefully looking in the proverbial mirror and asking themselves “Is this the sort of country in which we wish to live?” That is certainly a reasonable question. Another is do we truly wish to have an unelected minority of five million dictate policy for the rest of us? The most pertinent of the tipping points of this multi-faceted and complex issue comes down to the simple premise that the right of school students, church congregations, concert goers and movie audiences to not get shot to death or maimed by assault rifles or any other sort of firearm carries more weight than anyone else’s right to bear the weapons capable of such crimes. A terrible status quo is due for a just push back. Random shot citizens, particularly dead children, is no longer an acceptable exchange for a “right” to bear anything.
How much did Democrats in Congress accomplish when they held the majority? or the WH? Both parties and independents have been influenced by well funded and often well founded lobbying by NRA as well as other special interests seeking to preserve their constitutional rights…this is our system. The 2nd Amnendment is not so popular today but one has to ask which other rights would you be willing to part with since you are so quick to forfeit the 2nd?
By virtue of its wording, the implied intent of the 2nd Amendment is that all voting citizens (ie, all adult males) would serve in the militia. That was the responsibility that went with the right to keep and bear arms. That responsibility went away with the passage of the National Defense Act of 1920 which provided for organization of the National Guard, service in which is voluntary.
Nothing of any substance in regard to gun control will happen as long as Republicans still control Congress… the NRA will take (and is now taking) a temporary downturn in influence among ordinary Americans, but their political influence will not be significantly eroded. Mass killings will continue to occur, with more taking place in States where regulation has been passed that makes weapons easiest to obtain. Every attempt to exert more gun control will spur more & more of them to be bought & stockpiled, along with ammunition and accessories. And round & round it will go… where it will end one can only ——–guess. But it won’t be pretty.