01/26/13

This is written with a clear bias. I eagerly admit this. The news story I refer to below, which you may notice is typical of most every news story since the murders, also has a clear bias, but they will not admit to this.

It was nothing more than an email that made it onto Facebook. No verification presented. Just another predictably incendiary response to the flames flying back and forth through the ether these days. But it struck a nerve with me. It went something like this:

Columbine shooting---both murderers too young to vote, but both sets of murderers’ parents registered democrats

Virginia Tech shooting-----murderer a registered democrat

Fort Hood shooting---murderer a registered democrat

Colorado Theater shooting---murderer a registered democrat, Occupy Wall Street protester, Obama campaign worker

Newtown shooting---murderer a registered democrat

Now, I don’t know if any of the above is true, or if party affiliation matters a whit in the distorted mind workings of a mass murderer. Most likely not. I have nothing against democrats. Heck, I’ve been a registered democrat for decades. And other than wonder if Obama has considered that he is likely to alienate a core constituency if he actually expects his repressive gun control laws to impact folks longing to follow in the footsteps of these killers, I don’t care. 

But what caught my mind was the point made by the guy who sent the email. All he did was pose the question, “Has anyone ever heard of a mass shooting conducted by a member of the NRA?”

This question floats in the air…

I hear every day now that the NRA is the reason those victims of mass murder are dead, but where are those NRA killers?

A typical blurb popped up on the computer the other day.  Yet another news story concerning the president’s massive new and rehashed list of restrictions and bans he wishes to impose upon the citizens of this country, supposedly in the wake of the terrible murders of children by a lone madman. Upon superficial observation, the news story seemed to favor the president’s point of view. In it, no one offers a rebuttal to the president’s promises. 

First of course, they had to retell the horrors of the murders, in case one person on earth had missed the 24/7 news coverage for the last month. A troubled young man murders his mother in bed and then travels to the classroom where she had worked, presumably to make his mother feel even worse by killing the children in her classroom. He murders twenty innocent 6 year old kids, using the “High Powered Military Style Assault Weapon to Spray bullets all over the place”. They always make it sound as if the murderer killed his victims deader this way than if he had committed the despicable deed by any other method. 

And then the news story kinda forgets all about the man who murdered, and shifts the cause of this tragedy to the tool used. 

Forgets all about the man who murdered….

A man on the street is interviewed, and in no uncertain terms, he demands that something be done to end “Gun Violence”.

A spokesperson from each of three organizations long dedicated to banning guns is interviewed, and after an extensive Q&A session, a consensus flows into the story. Americans have no right to own firearms. The Second Amendment only applies to government militias, such as the National Guard. A gun in the house is hundreds of times more dangerous to the people living in the house than to any criminal who might break in. Nobody needs a machine gun to go deer hunting. And “Military Style Assault Weapons” must be banned, and then all handguns and rifles while we are at it, for civilians have no need for these. Only the police and military should be allowed firearms. If only one child is saved it will be worth it.

No one contradicts or questions the misinformation presented by the gun ban spokespersons.

With only one column inch remaining to fill, the story turns to the difficulty the president faces getting these desperately needed “common sense” gun regulations passed into law. But horrors!!! The powerful “Gun Lobby” is swinging into action to block him. 

The “Gun Lobby” isn’t given an extensive Q&A session to make its case against the president’s  un-necessary regulations intended to punish the people who don’t go around killing folks. The “Gun Lobby” isn’t actually given a chance to say anything at all. For this is one debate that is strangely one sided. The author of this piece did go to the trouble to paraphrase a bit of what the “Gun Lobby” might have said if ever asked, carefully selected and taken out of context to assure that anyone who has read this far will easily conclude that the “Gun Lobby” is so extreme that they should be locked up for their own protection, and of course for the protection of little kids. 

And then the piece ends with a fervent wish that the president will finally succeed in enacting legislation that will forever protect people from “Gun Violence”.

Did you hear the ominous peal of thunder when the words “Gun Lobby” appeared? Did you see the lights briefly flicker? Did horses whiney in desperation in the distance? Did a wizard straight from central casting hold a finger to his lips and caution about, “The name that must not be spoken”?

The National Rifle Association has become Lord Voldemort in the gun control debate. The NRA has been painted as so virulently evil that any mention of the organization leaves a metallic taste in many people’s mouths. One wonders how the NRA has been allowed to exist, for it and it alone is responsible for all those murders, all those ruined lives, all those holes in the stop signs.

The camera focuses in on a demonstration, people carrying signs against “Gun Violence”. “Save the Children” from the guns. And “Stop the NRA”!!. It’s the NRA’s fault. Evil NRA. “How is your conscience, NRA?”

Really?

Back in the 1870’s the US Government was concerned about the quality of men entering the army, for their marksmanship was not up to snuff. So at the request of the US Government, the National Rifle Association formed to teach marksmanship and conduct target shooting contests. To this day, the NRA teaches marksmanship and conducts national contests. 

The NRA began teaching firearms safety after the turn of the last century, for accidental deaths were way too high. The rates of accidental firearms related deaths have been dropping ever since. And the NRA is still the primary reason for the continuing drop in accidental firearms related deaths. And no, don’t expect to read this in the next media story.

The NRA has trained police officers for many decades, and many live today because of this. The NRA has also trained countless civilians in marksmanship and safety. The NRA has been the recognized world authority in marksmanship and firearms safety. But, don’t expect……

In the mid 1930’s many things changed in this country. Long story short, the plunge toward total government control began in that decade as people willingly traded freedom for the comfort of government provided security. Half way through the decade the Supreme Court decided against the Second Amendment because a man with a winning case died before he could present it, and the first serious erosion of the right to bear arms became law. And for the first time, the National Rifle Association entered the fray against those who would disarm the citizens.

The NRA has been fighting attacks on gun owners and the Second Amendment since.  Lies and distortions, spoken by politicians and repeated and reinforced by media, became the ground rules of this attack on citizens owning firearms. Massive propaganda campaigns, like the current push by Obama and Feinstein, tried to sway public opinion. Demonize a common firearm or component and then try to ban them. “Saturday Night Special” “Cop Killer Bullet” “Plastic Guns” “Sniper Rifle” “Assault Weapon” Ban them. The NRA fought these bans for they were based upon lies and distortion, and merely demonized firearms so that large numbers of guns would be banned for no reason. Handgun bans. Semiautomatic rifle bans. Self defense bans. Each designed solely to disarm the public, to deny citizens their rights under the Constitution. The NRA fought them all by telling the truth, and by educating voters who had little other source of information save the inaccuracies, distortions and outright lies presented in the media. 

The politicians say that the NRA is evil, and that they, the politicians, are the good guys. But they trample our Constitutional rights for political gain, and the people suffer. An educated public demanded the truth, and thus freedom won many times over corrupt politicians. Civilians with firearms defended themselves millions of times from criminal attack, because they still could. Citizens enjoyed their shooting hobbies and taught their children to hunt in long standing family tradition. And the slide toward a disarmed public facing corrupt government slowed.

The NRA has a few million members, far more than all gun ban groups together, but by themselves they cannot defend freedom. The NRA has money to spend in the congress and senate, but by themselves they cannot buy freedom. Yet freedom keeps getting in the way of those who would trample it. What is it about the NRA that angers the media and the politicians so? Could it be that despite all they do to demonize the NRA, America still listens to that voice of reason? For many more than the NRA’s 4 million members vote against gun control and the politicians who foist it upon the public. Freedom persists the old fashioned way. The citizens demand it.

One voice. One voice, that points out the lies of the media and the politicians. One voice that opposes the propaganda campaigns. One voice that alerts free Americans where to fight and when. One voice, without which the average person would never see a side to the arguments that the media and the politicians dare not present. Small wonder the media and the politicians hate the NRA so, and desperately try to silence it.

This Lord Voldemort is not the evil it is painted. But it stands solidly in the way of the media and the politicians, and so they must try to destroy it.

Still, there are no NRA meetings in the prisons of America. The NRA is not encouraging criminals to be criminals. Nope. The NRA keeps asking the government to enforce its own laws, to catch and punish criminals before it lights out after the innocent citizen, but this is too hard for our government. Or…they just don’t care.

There are no NRA meetings on International Blvd in Oakland, Sycamore Dr in Antioch, Cutter Blvd in Richmond. The gangs and murderers of the hood don’t join the NRA. They kill each other off on a daily basis all by themselves. They…are not the fault of the NRA.

A mass murderer steals a gun and kills random people. He could have used so many other tools for his dastardly work. And if the propaganda works, and the ambitious corruption in government wins, and the guns dry up, he will simple choose another tool, and children will still die. And the media will profit greatly reporting the murders over and over and over again, to encourage yet the next generation of murderers. But those murderers still will not belong to the NRA.

A woman who can sleep with a pistol under her pillow so she won’t be raped again, can thank the NRA. A family that sleeps soundly because nasty as they are, our criminals are reluctant to crash into an occupied home, for the home owner could face him with a firearm can thank the NRA. A kid who grows up in the forest seeking deer, rather than in a slum seeking crack…can thank the NRA. And a cop who goes home after her shift, can thank the NRA. Millions of Americans who awake to freedom each morning, can thank the NRA. 

It’s only the enemies of freedom who think the NRA is Lord Voldemort.

So no…I don’t recall hearing of a mass shooting where the murderer was a NRA member. Not ever. Now you might think I’m slipping off into my usual paranoid rant, but … ah, don’t you figure the media would take note of this and mention it, oh I don’t know, four thousand times a day, if they did have one of these NRA member murderers? I think we’d hear about it.

I mean….. come on. The media already blames the NRA for every one of these mass murders. Yet, I have it on good authority that the NRA was not present at any of these murders. 

Heck, I wasn’t either, but I’ve felt the heat, the scorn, the thinly veiled hatred directed at me every time I listen to the TV “reporting” or read a blurb on the net concerning the latest version of copycat killing. 

American gun owners!!! You know who you are!!!  Count the bodies!!!! Gun violence, and it’s the fault of America’s gun owners. Where is your conscience?

Really?

American gun owners. Nearly 100 million gun owners who are not murderers, not criminals. Look what you and the NRA have done for good, and for freedom. 

How’s your conscience?