Despicable. Shameful. Outrageous.
Until today I didn't think NRA executives could surprise me by acting more callous, tone-deaf, disrespectful, and unpatriotic than they've demonstrated in the past.
But now the NRA has put out a video insulting Obama and his daughters for using the Secret Service protection that has been uncontroversial in the past -- until the NRA decided that the best way to honor the deaths of twenty children at Sandy Hook Elementary School killed by an assault rifle is to pick on Sasha and Malia.
"Has the NRA lost it entirely?" asks Salon. Answer: absolutely.
It's fair game to target the president's daughters, says a gun lobby leader. Responsible gun owners should tear up their membership cards in the NRA and other like-organizations. Your dues are paying for crap like this video.
At the moment, the video has many more thumbs-down dislikes than thumbs-up likes. Excellent.
The NRA is its own worst enemy, because it is opposed to any and all efforts that would bring gun violence in this country down to levels in Canada, Australia, England, Germany, and other nations with cultures similar to ours, but with much stronger gun regulations.
One of the executive orders President Obama announced today would restore federal funding for research into the causes of gun violence. The NRA squashed this sort of research back in 1996, demonstrating how fearful it is of the truth.
If more guns are so great at protecting people, why is it that people are much more likely to die from gun violence (murder or suicide) if there is a gun in the home? The NRA is afraid Americans will learn the facts about guns.
Obama has put us on the path toward becoming a genuine culture of life by reducing the thousands of needless gun deaths that occur in this country every year because of lax regulation. Hopefully Congress will follow his lead.
Republicans should read an op-ed by John Howard, former center-right prime minister of Australia: "I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too." He oversaw the implementation of gun laws that banned assault weapons (bought them back, even) and instituted other regulations that worked.
In the end, we won the battle to change gun laws because there was majority support across Australia for banning certain weapons. And today, there is a wide consensus that our 1996 reforms not only reduced the gun-related homicide rate, but also the suicide rate. The Australian Institute of Criminology found that gun-related murders and suicides fell sharply after 1996.
The American Journal of Law and Economics found that our gun buyback scheme cut firearm suicides by 74 percent. In the 18 years before the 1996 reforms, Australia suffered 13 gun massacres — each with more than four victims — causing a total of 102 deaths. There has not been a single massacre in that category since 1996.
Few Australians would deny that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun control.
Gun control doesn't make people safer, taming the mentally insane does.
Posted by: Kyle | January 16, 2013 at 11:34 PM
Kyle, you're wrong. More guns equals more killings. More gun control equals fewer killings. This is a fact, based on what happens in countries with stronger gun control, and in states with stronger gun control. See:
http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2012/12/more-proof-that-guns-kill-people-people-dont-kill-people.html
Guns kill people. It's a fact.
Posted by: Brian Hines | January 17, 2013 at 12:12 AM
Chicago has very tough gun laws yet the murder rate in that city is very high and out of control. More people were killed in Chicago last year than there were U.S. casualties in the Afgan war.
There are 300 million guns on the loose in the USA. Criminals and crazies are going to find a gun if they want one.
We are not going to discover the next mass killer before he performs his atrocity. If he can't get a semi auto rifle he'll get a semi-auto pistol. If he can't get that, he'll get a lever action rifle that holds nine rounds. If he can't get that he'll get a bolt action rifle that holds five rounds. When those guns run out of bullets he'll pull out the six shooter revolvers tucked into his waistband and reload them with speedloaders. When those are used up he can start slashing everyone with the sword at his side and then finish off everbody left standing with the bomb in his fannypack.
What is not discussed are the lives that are saved by people owning guns. I often see in the news about someone who defended their home and family with a gun or prevented a carjacking/robbery. In my locality someone accomplished just that with a semi-auto rifle. I don't remember if it was an AK or AR Bushmaster, or SKS or mini-14 or what. There are 4 million of those types of guns on the loose. What are you going to do? Gestapo them out of existence and in the process get many people killed?
Sometimes it takes more than one shot to stop a bad guy. Some bad guys have been shot multiple times and keep coming. Sometimes you miss the bad guy and have to keep shooting. People should have the right to defend themselves with a high capacity rifle if they so choose.
So now emotional anti-gunners would say that I want little children slaughtered. That's right...that I actually want dead kids strewn across the playground. Well, screw you and your hyperbole. That sort of event may upset me even more than you but I don't think anti-gun laws are going to solve the problem of mental illness and the culture of violence in this country.
I don't have an answer, but violent crime is actually down in this country by 23%. Maybe we can reduce that even more with very tough sentences for those who commit crimes with a gun...10 years for having a gun while commiting a crime. 20 years for pointing it at someone in a crime and life in prison for shooting it at someone whether you killed them or not.
But surprise attack psycho killers of children and movie-goers? I don't know how you will ever stop that. It's a grim reality like plane crashes and car accidents.
The NRA is not the problem here.
Posted by: tucson | January 17, 2013 at 10:04 AM
tucson, I doubt you apply the same logic you're using with guns to other parts of life. Such as auto safety.
By your logic, there is no reason to require air bags, seat belts, shatterproof glass, and all the other regulated things that make cars safer.
None of those things, or all together, stop traffic accidents/deaths entirely. But each does its part to make driving safer. Auto deaths have decreased markedly because of these regulations.
Clear evidence from other countries, and states within this country, with strong gun control laws shows that regulations also work to decrease gun violence. In Australia, for example, mass shootings went down to zero after semi-automatic weapons were banned.
Like Obama said: if we can save children's lives, we have to try. Look at what happened after 9/11. Again, by your logic the United States shouldn't have done anything: no TSA, no invasion of Afghanistan, no going after Al Qaeda. We just would have said, "Hey, terrorists always will find another way to fill us; no reason to try to stop them."
Posted by: Brian Hines | January 17, 2013 at 10:31 AM
Brian,
Few people argue that their right to self defense and constitutional rights are compromised by auto safety technology, so the public is generally happy with safer cars. Ob*ma sending a drone into a known terrorist plotter's man-cave is met with little opposition because most people recognise that we need to defend ourselves.
The USA is a different kettle of fish than other countries due to the 2nd amendment and a strong gun hobbyist culture. I don't know what would happen if we had gun laws like Australia but imo it would not solve the problem of crazy mass killings in this country which has precipitated this debate. Certainly strong gun laws have not stopped gun murders in Chicago.
As I described above, I think one feasible deterrent to gun crime is to punish gun criminals harshly..very harshly and universally in this country.
As for lunatic mass killers who have the time and inclination to plan an atrocity, I don't think there is any solution at all. Especially not one that doesn't infringe on good people's freedom, rights and privacy.
Posted by: tucson | January 17, 2013 at 05:54 PM