Skip to main content

Guns and Politics


The NRA has plunged to a new low by coming out with a list of National Organizations with Anti-Gun Policies.  It has been dubbed the "Enemies List" in the media, but at least the NRA was relatively careful with its wording, unlike Sarah Palin a few years back when she literally "targeted" Congressional races, including that of Gabby Giffords, which landed her in a lot of hot water when Giffords was shot.  But, the intent is clear.  The NRA wants its supporters to know who the "bad guys" are when it comes to "anti-gun" legislation.

Among those organizations listed are AARP, the Episcopal Church (Washington office), the National Education Association, the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Service, The National Organization of Women, The YWCA and many others.  It once again demonstrates the NRA is less an organization concerned with gun safety than it is a political action committee, using its political muscle to not only attack what it perceives as local, state and federal anti-gun legislation, but those organizations that press for such legislation.

In some ways, this is good because it finally lets the cat out of the bag.  We are really beginning to see the NRA leadership for what it is -- a bunch of paranoid schizophrenics who seem incapable of accepting legislation that tries to promote sensible gun control, i.e. the Brady Bill and the "Clinton assault weapons ban."   The NRA has gone into hyper-drive in attacking the President and everyone else who supports the return of the assault weapons ban or tries to shore up the Brady Bill as "elitist hypocrites."   These measures might make it a little difficult for guys like Jared Loughner to purchase a gun and go out and shoot a Congresswoman in the head, and maybe deter women like Nancy Lanza from stocking up on assault weapons in fear of a coming Armageddon.

Instead, you see idiots like Larry Ward having the audacity to say that if Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today he would be against gun control, and making other outrageous claims as Gun Appreciation Day just happened to coincide with MLK Jr.'s birthday this year.  His is not the only attempt to link the right to bear arms to the civil rights struggle.  Then we have the notorious NRA ad that specifically targeted Obama's daughters, forcing even Joe Scarborough to shake his head in disbelief and wonder what is wrong with these people.  Wayne LaPierre defended that ad.


Notice how the NRA also sneaked a swipe at Obama over taxes into that ad, once again illustrating that the NRA is little more than a Republican political fundraising machine.  Here we are, down to rock bottom again, leading many within their own ranks to wonder what the hell is going on.

Comments

  1. And a front for the gun manufacturers.

    There's no need for any of these massive assault weapons and we should all be doing everything in our power to reduce their numbers immediately.

    I may not be pro military, but the young men and women who volunteer have been openly identified as potential "targets" by these assault weapon advocates, as have our police and firemen. I still find it unbelievable that members of Congress would vote to protect the assault weapon owners and manufacturers over these public servants -- not to mention the nation's children.

    We need some serious educational campaigns on this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just can't over how bald-faced the rhetoric has become. The NRA ad attacking Obama for using security guards was really something, especially given that his much maligned executive order actually calls for training school officials to deal with hostile situations (see item #12). Not sure what all it will entail, but clearly Obama did respond to concerns raised by the NRA, yet is being compared to Hitler and Stalin for this executive action,

    http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/01/obama-executive-actions-gun-list/61075/

    ReplyDelete
  3. One compromise I had heard that made sense to me was to keep these mega-weapons at special shooting clubs where you could shoot to your heart's content, but leave the gun locked up the rest of time.

    But even that doesn't seem sensible given today's news:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/reports-sheriff-says-american-sniper-author-chris-kyle-another-man-killed-at-texas-range/2013/02/03/38f72658-6dcd-11e2-8f4f-2abd96162ba8_story.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. They even have dead people like Andy Williams as an enemy.BTW that is one loooong list.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, and it makes the NRA look like the one on the fringe of society, not everyone else.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The really scary thing is to their(NRA) minions the groups/people on the enemy list are the ones on the fringe.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unfortunately, that's the way it is with most Republicans these days.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The NRA has been saying all along that the 2d Amendment was principally designed to ward off the threat of government tyranny. Technically they are correct, at least in part. Yet, the NRA has had no trouble with the criminally abusive government actions of racist Sheriff Arpaio in Arizona.

    Arpaio has terrorized Hispanics for decades. His prisons have such harsh conditions that several pregnant female prisoners have miscarried. This makes the tyrant a baby killer. Delusional right wingers claim they are the least racist members of this society and that they are always so "fair & balanced" in everything. Yet, nobody from the right wing has any trouble with his continued violations of the 8th Amendment's injunctions against cruel and unusual punishment.

    This is hypocrisy of the worse kind.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I don't see how they are even "technically correct," as the second amendment is principally about the right to form state militias due to the continued threat of invasion by a foreign country, i.e. Britain, Spain or France. The Continental Army had been disbanded by this time, and the only defense system the US was in its state militias. It never was intended the way the NRA has interpreted it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. As the NRA spirals out of control, I hope everyone here has written to all their representatives to remind them that no one uses assault rifles to hunt or to defend themselves (except from the drones they think they will be shooting out of the sky). They are only used to easily kill a large number of people at one time, including our police officers and first responders. And, sadly, to slaughter our youngest children.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!