Ever since the gruesome killings in Newtown, CT, there has been a rancorous debate over the 2nd Amendment and the role of firearms in our society. Last week was the six month anniversary of Newtown and most Americans have come to terms with a common sense approach that would subject prospective gun buyers to a simple and quick background check in order to assure that they are not violent felons or mentally unstable. Unfortunately, this rational initiative has been supplanted in the news cycle by a bevy of trumped-up scandals that don’t have nearly the real-world impact on the lives of average Americans.
The UN recently released for signatures an arms treaty that would curb access to weapons by terrorists and rogue nations, but the advocates of unfettered access to firearms are already circling the wagons to oppose it. They have abandoned all respect for reason and empathy. The magnitude of their fixation on the broadest possible interpretation of gun rights has exceeded all boundaries of rational thought. They promote a near-total absence of laws regulating gun ownership that amounts to what could be called gunarchy (gun+anarchy). To say that some of their arguments border on lunacy would not be an overstatement. The following examples reveal just how devoted the NRA congregation is to their mission.
The UN Arms Trade And National Sovereignty Abolition Treaty
The United Nations recently approved an international treaty aimed at prohibiting the free-flow of military-grade weapons between oppressive dictatorships and terrorist organizations. This treaty was supported by more than 170 member-states with only Syria, Iran, and North Korea dissenting. Nevertheless, the gunarchists in congress decided to align themselves with that elite trio of naysayers and blocked ratification in the senate. The reason given was that this treaty had the potential to infringe on the sovereignty of the United States, despite the fact that such an infringement was explicitly prohibited in the treaty. So while the UN attempts to make the world safer, right-wingers in the U.S. are serving the interests of defense contractors (even those in China), who favor unencumbered free trade.
Prevent School Shootings By Putting More Guns In Schools
The first response from the NRA to the tragedy at Sandy Hook was to propose the placement of armed guards at every school in America. The folly of this suggestion is all too apparent. The proliferation of guns will never be the solution to the problems they produce. It would merely turn every campus into a potential war zone. The gunarchists never explain how armed guards would prevent a mad man like Adam Lanza, who would still have had greater firepower than a school guard. Plus, he would have had the advantage of surprise and would likely have made his first victims the guard and any nearby teachers. This “solution” also fails to address the rest of our allegedly imperiled communities. There are also children at the beach, in shopping malls, at church, in restaurants, and parks, and playgrounds, and libraries. Would they propose to have armed security at every Chuck E. Cheese and Disney movie? Would they advocate that we have innumerable George Zimmermans patrolling our neighborhoods and slaughtering the innocent?
The NRA-Theists On Buying America
Earlier this year, NRA Executive Vice-President Wayne LaPierre, publicly rebuked New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for spending heavily to promote his campaign for gun safety legislation. Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns was reported to have raised $12 million for advocacy and advertising. LaPierre pounced on that disclosure accusing Bloomberg of trying to “impose his will on the American public,” and insisting that “He can’t buy America.” What LaPierre neglected to mention was that his own campaign had just spent more than twice that amount leading up to the November elections last year. So if Bloomberg is trying to buy America then the NRA is brazenly outbidding them. At least Bloomberg’s campaign is sync with what the American people already believe by huge majorities.
Let’s Disarm The First Responders
As gun safety activists started to make strides in state legislatures, the infuriated gunarchists struck back by taking their vengeance out on state and local police. Weapons retailers vowed to refrain from selling their wares to law enforcement agencies in states that strengthened their safety regulations. Clearly this was not very well thought out because the effect of this reverse boycott, in the unlikely event that it was successful, would leave police unarmed as they endeavored to protect the public from evildoers. That’s the sort of radical response that harms people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue under protest. Yet conservative media from Fox News to Glenn Beck’s The Blaze to Breitbart News, all bragged about how this was snowballing into a movement.
Comparing Gun Rights To Civil Rights
NRA board member, and washed up rock burnout, Ted Nugent, has never been at a loss for utterly deranged and offensive words. He has engaged in violent rhetoric suggesting his desire to shoot President Obama, and California’s senators Feinstein and Boxer. And were he more reliable, he would currently be either dead or in jail today according to his own promise. But if it’s possible for him to cross a line that he has not already thoroughly erased, he did so when he placed himself in the same heroic company as Rosa Parks saying “There will come a time when the gun owners of America will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus.” Never mind the obvious absurdity of juxtaposing the non-violent civil rights struggle for equality with the desire to hoard munitions. Nugent and his ilk even suggested that things would have been much better had civil rights activists been armed to the teeth. Of course that would have violated the principles of non-violent civil disobedience practiced by Martin Luther King. It would also have contributed to a blood bath in the streets if protesters were actually stupid enough to do what Nugent proposes.
The Heartbreak of Hoplophobia
Not satisfied with merely rebutting the arguments of gun safety advocates, the gunarchists have invented a psychological disorder that they can use to dismiss the heart-tugging appeals of real people who were victims of gun violence. Hoplophobia, which they define as a morbid fear of guns, is not recognized by any mental health authority, but it is now being used to assert that anyone who has undergone a traumatic experience associated with guns is psychologically impaired and unfit to participate in a policy debate. There is only one purpose for this made-up malady, and that is to try to get effective spokespeople like Gabrielle Giffords, Jim Brady, the Sandy Hook parents, etc., to shut up.
The advocates for unrestrained proliferation of weaponry of all kinds have simply stopped trying to make coherent arguments. They are pursuing an absolutist course wherein any opposition is tantamount to tyranny and justifies armed rebellion to resist. These are the immutable positions of the gunarchists who represent the arms manufacturers, but not the American people. Polls have repeatedly confirmed that even NRA members do not support the positions of the NRA leaders. And eventually our representatives in congress will have to recognize that their best interests are served by serving the people and not the lobbyists.
Stop screwing with the 2nd amendment and things would be fine. We’re much better off as a FREE society with our bill of rights – the whole thing – left alone by those who continue to push the idea we are making things better by regulating and/or restricting our rights. People, especially now, are not buying that line of BS.
Sorry to descend to this…..you are a moron and more to the point, you are wrong! Reference the last several election results, as a good starting point.
I’ve been away and missed all this fun…So you’re saying winners of elections you cite (None as your comment was general) were running on this kind of action – legislating restrictions on our bill of rights – don’t think so. Funny how people such as yourself run down those whose primary concern is preserving our freedoms – much like liberals of past. You must feel your rights should be regulated or restricted for the betterment of society as a whole – I don’t. I would suggest you’re every bit the moron as you suggest I am given your ridiculous beliefs and trust after the government actions of the past 12 years since 9/11 – go bury your head (or maybe keep your head there) in the sand, pulling it out may be too much for you.
And at least read all of the 2nd amendment, not just the parts you like.
I’ve read it and I”m sure you are hanging your hat on the “well regulated militia” line. The last time I checked, an interpretation on the individual’s right was confirmed by the supreme court. You must not like that interpretation as it doesn’t support your position on restricting our rights.
I liked it just fine. Scalia said in his opinion we have the right to bear arms but the gov’t had the ability to regulate. When Scalia said it he referenced the need to keep folks from walking down the street with a grenade launcher strapped to their backs. Besides, no one has taken my guns or yours. It boils down to reading comprehension.
No, it boils down to how far you think government should be permitted to go. Yes, you are right, no one has taken my guns – yet. The fight over this issue now helps keep that from ever happening in the future – I don’t give the state the benefit of the doubt as you do and never will. Reading comprehension has nothing to do with it unless you include reading history. Note Scalia,s example is quite extreme – not the “normal” weapon I would argue – so if you are willing to use his example in it’s extreme, why can’t you accept it to permitting LAW ABIDING people accessing what they want.
Where does the idea that background checks are screwing with second amendment come from? Am I for banning assault weapons? No, but I’m certainly not against universal background checks, why should I be? There will never, ever, be any confiscatory laws enacted in this country. EVER. Every response from the right on background checks seems to come from a different conversation, one in which the right is so convinced that ALL of liberty is at stake. This article is lucid and focused on what’s relevant, I see nothing extreme here at all.
I’m apparently a rare creature in that I’m a pro second amendment liberal, but I know that universal background checks aren’t screwing with the second amendment. I see the right embrace hyperbole so easily on this issue. Why? The left isn’t going all or nothing on this issue, why does the right think they are? The way I see it, both sides are on this issue out of irrational fear, the left out of fear of being randomly victimized, and the right out of fear of all powerful government that will eventually grow so powerful that they won’t think twice about killing you for any reason.
These all or nothing issues man….need some goddamn perspective and less people willing to go to extremes.
You’re not that rare of a creature; I’m a flaming liberal who owns quite a few firearms, including “assault” rifles, and I had absolutely no qualms with the Manchin-Toomey Act or the UN Arms Trafficking regulation.
If people would actually read this proposed legislation instead of relying on the explanations offered by puppets like a bunch of preschoolers, things might actually change for the better. But that requires actual thought and critical thinking, something that knee-jerk conservatives despise.
Sorry, I do believe in the extremes on our individual freedoms – it’s your (actually Mark’s from past discussions) interpretation that our rights are not absolute that lead to those things you suggest will or cannot ever happen. When you open the door, no telling who will walk through it, so leave it shut and locked.
They aren’t absolute dude. Where’d that come from? They can be amended by congress according to the will of the people at any time, in order to keep our rights relevant to a society moving forward through time relative to changing and evolving technology and social discourse. That’s how it was designed, to ever more work toward a more perfect union. It’s parchment, not stone.
But we’re not talking about amending them – just legislating whatever someone wants to do. When they are amended, then there will be less debate, but as it stands, arbitrary legislation ignoring these stated rights is dangerous and wrong. They are absolute until repealed – if I were to subscribe to your thinking, none of our rights can be taken seriously and can be restricted however the current occupants of congress and the white house feel like doing it. Typical twisted progressive views that are way more dangerous to individuals than any terrorist could ever be.
That was my entire point of my first reply. No one is advancing any legislation that could be described by anyone that knows what theyre talking about as unconstitutional. Not even close. That’s the all or nothing bullshit man, you’re chiming in with replies from a different conversation. Nothing they want to do now is anywhere close to matching your rhetoric. It’s two different conversations!! You prove me right in everything I’ve fucking said here!! Do you not see that? You’re trying to rebut me but you’re not able to see that you’ve done the exact thing I’ve said your side does in this issue!!! AMAZING!!! Man?!? Really?? You even called me ‘worse than a terrorist’!! Fuck you for that by the way, you have a habit of doing that here and it doesn’t make it easier to take your opinions seriously. And yes, it is up to the elected officials in congress and the white house to come up with laws and amend the constitution as they and by proxy, a majority of their constituents see as necessary!! Do you not understand how this country fucking functions?? There’s nothing arbitrary about it dude, it’s fucking democracy. And no, they aren’t absolute until repealed, they’re amendments. They can amend them in any capacity at any time. It’s law, not fuckin dogma! Jesus Christ, I feel like Tony stark at the beginning of ironman 2, ‘I try to play ball with these assclowns!’
I suppose I shouldn’t want you banned, as I said in some other article, as you never fail to vindicate me in everything I’ve ever said. Man…you truly fucked up your entire purpose of being here. I’m not goin back from this this time, I did cause you seemed to be posting reasonable comments worthy of discussion, but then you showcase an incredible ignorance and ill grip on reality. You wanna talk about dangerous political views? Yours are born out of a confused and hateful outlook that border on fucking solipsism!! You make me, ever so briefly, reconsider literacy tests for voting. I’m not goin back this time, I’m done responding to you Steve. I think it’s obvious that we aren’t capable of having the same level conversation. I hope you have enough air in that bubble man.
Clearly Steve, you have no knowledge of constitutional law. When you say that constitutional rights “are absolute until repealed,” you ignore the fact that all law is subject to interpretation. Consequently, these rights have legal caveats. For instance, the First Amendment does not permit you to yell “fire” in a crowded theater (unless it’s on fire). Therefore, the right is not absolute.
Don’t you see how that exact position is used to justify new laws that absolutely do degrade our freedoms specifically protected by the bill of rights. It’s being used now and by the previous administration as described by former VP Dick Cheney after the NSA thing came out – using the ends to justify the means to “make us safer”. Progressivism is the greatest enabler to that mode of governing – nothing seems to be off limits since you can interpret your way into anything. Maybe we can apply your idea of no absolute rights on abortion. Yeah, I’m sure you’ll have an excuse why that isn’t ok, which is why I take my approach – it takes the interpretation and politics out – we all are protected no matter who inhabits the presidency. I stand by my statement about progressivism and terrorism – I know your intentions are BELIEVED to be good and just, but in the end, those actions result in all bad.
Just wanted to add that my last sentence above isn’t meant to be mean or ignorant, but the view you pose provide an excellent example of the differnces between conservatives (not todays republicans) and progressives.
Yes, the differences between conservatives and progressives is that conservatives like you can say that progressives are way more dangerous than any terrorist could ever be, and then still claim you aren’t being mean or ignorant.
Yeah, that may be ignorant, but in the end it’s true – progressivism is exactly that dangerous as a political philosophy. I know I’m much less free when you get your way. I’ll note Detroit as the glaring example of progressivism in practice – at least the results of it.
Such a desperate GUNSUCK. See my definition of your psychological condition below.
So, by describing the opposition’s position, you think you undermine it? Just underscoring the NRA’s arguments makes you look stupid.
Here’s a nice bunch of gun-toting Jews for you to criticize: jpfo.org. That stands for Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. I’m sure they wouldn’t have been popular in Germany, way back when. At least, not with the lemmings crowd.
You didn’t read this article did you? You couldn’t have, given your comment…Jews for guns? Could you be more irrelevant?? Not even if you tried…
If you want to visualize a gunsuck, visualize a weapon implanted in their crotches, with feelers of skin and ligament twined around the cold blue steel. Kind of like the Borg.
You try to dislodge that, of course you’re going to get howls of anguish.