Guns, Gun Violence and the NRA

I know, you're probably thinking, "Every time something happens in this country to stir some controversy, this guy thinks he needs to add his two cents..." Well, I do because I think it's important that we discuss these things and try to move forward.

A buddy of mine and I were driving along, listening to the account of what recently happened in Los Vegas, when he turned to me and said something to the affect of, "You know what? Maybe it's time we just get rid of all these assault weapons. This guy would have never been able to do what he did if the guns weren't available." He went on to say, "I'm just tired of hearing about all these shootings and we can do something about it."

(You can hear more on that conversation and about our hunting trip by going to: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fez7r-774baf)

The guy that was saying this is an outdoors-man, a father, a gun owner, hunter, angler, likes to shoot shit, and pretty damn conservative and also, I would say, reflects the feelings of most of us outdoors people. What he was saying was pretty consistent with most of the hunters I know and this conversation was similar to a lot of the conversations I've had recently with other hunters, even before this shooting. So what the hell is the problem? Well, I'll tell you. It's the National Rifle Association. Yep. And if you think it's not, just keep reading.

Do you know how many people think it's a good idea to have universal background checks in order to purchase a weapon? It's well over 90% of Americans, both Dems and Republicans according to a recent poll conducted by Hart Research Associates in June of 2017. In the same poll, the majority of people thought we should have stricter gun laws in general and again, the majority also felt we would be putting ourselves in more danger if we had more guns on the streets. Here's the deal though, as it pertains to stricter gun laws and whether or not we should have more guns on the streets, it is obvious that Republicans' and Democrats' views are pretty different even though ALL of the research that has been done shows that more guns on the streets and in people's homes equates to more gun violence--over 30,000 deaths per year! And yes, a third are suicides but how many of those deaths could have been prevented if the gun wasn't so readily available? (http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/assault-weapons-deaths_us_5763109de4b015db1bc8c123)

Anyway, let's get back to the assault weapons.

The vast majority gun violence, according the Huffpost article referenced above, doesn't come from assault rifles or rifles in general. The overwhelming majority comes from handguns. So gun-owners and the NRA point to these stats to justify the overall risk in owning the guns isn't significant enough to ban those guns. However, what's the benefit of having those guns? Because they are fun to shoot? Or, because they're used to eradicate feral hogs? Really? How's that working? And you know what else is fun? Driving through the streets of Chicago at 100 mph in a Porsche but that's not legal either.

Here's the point; when things do happen with assault style weapons, it's usually pretty massive and it's overwhelmingly an assault on innocent people like kids at a school or people at a night-club or a concert that are taken by surprise and have no way to defend themselves. Even if every one of those concert goers in Vegas had a handgun, none of them would have been any safer or could have defended themselves against the onslaught of violence that was raining down on them from 32 stories above. Nor does a police officer have much chance of even defending him/herself, much less the general public, when a couple shooters are equipped with such weaponry like what happened on February 28, 1997 in Los Angeles. It's because of the depth of the violence, the potential of loss, and the innocence of the victims that we see these attacks as different and more significant even though the numbers show that it's only a small percentage of the overall gun violence that assault weapons are involved in. We should look at these shootings outside of the overall incidence of gun violence because one; they are so massive in the sense that one incident creates so much devastation and two; because it can be prevented.

Do you know what the original motto of the NRA was? “Firearms Safety Education, Marksmanship Training, Shooting for Recreation.” This was back in 1871. The NRA was developed to help promote efficiency in shooting and firearms safety. In the 1920's, an arm of the NRA actually proposed legislation to require handgun carriers to have a permit. The point is, is that the NRA has a history of  promoting legislation that actually makes people safer as it pertains to gun laws and restrictions on gun ownership. This was consistent all the way through the 60's until an incident happened to NRA member, Kenyon Ballew in 1971, where he was shot an paralyzed for being suspected to be stock-piling illegal weapons. (http://time.com/4431356/nra-gun-control-history/) 

From that point on, the NRA has been acting like it has some vendetta against any agency or any person they feel is attacking one's right to own and bare arms as they interpret it says in the 2nd Amendment. An exclamation point was firmly placed on the NRA's position on gun control during the 2000 election where Charlton Heston rose a replica of a gun above his head proclaiming that anyone who wanted to take his gun would have to pry it “from my cold, dead hands.” 

Since then, CEO/Vice President and now President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, has championed the efforts of the NRA to absolutely destroy anyone opposing them by dumping millions of dollars into attack campaigns and propaganda influencing elections on local and national levels. Because of the amount of money the NRA is able to raise by instilling fear in gun owners and outdoors-people through the "slippery-slope" of any gun control leading to taking all our guns away, the NRA has achieved a ridiculous amount of power and has the ability to ruin people's carriers when they stand up to them. Over $34 million was spent by the NRA to defeat 19 candidates in last year's general elections. Over $37 million was spent in total against the dems while only about $2k was spent in support of a Democratic nominee. About $17 million was spent supporting republican candidates while only a couple hundred dollars was spent in opposing a republican candidate. Basically what that says, is over twice as much money is spent attacking candidates that oppose the NRA versus money spent supporting candidates. (https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=National%20Rifle%20Assn&cycle=2016) It's because of this power, that nobody wants to stand up to them even though most of us don't believe in what the NRA really stands for. Most of us want reasonable and responsible gun control measures and the majority don't feel like assault styles weapons should be protected by the 2nd Amendment. 

Let me just make this point clear; if the NRA really gave one rat's ass about you or me and our rights as American citizens, they would use their power to lead the charge to make us safer and find some compromise. Instead of putting out lies and propaganda in order to defeat those that are trying to protect us, they would actually promote the truth behind what makes people more at risk for experiencing gun violence and they would do what they originally set out to do, which was to promote a safer gun culture through training and legislation. Through those kinds of efforts, they would go much further to protect my rights and my heritage as a hunter and an outdoor enthusiast and I wouldn't have to worry about the all or nothing sum that such opposition has created.

Now I know, you're going to say that the NRA did support the banning of fully automatic weapons, which may be true but the reality is, is semi-automatic weapons can easily become fully automatic and the banning of "bump stocks" will just lead to other ways of getting around that kind of restriction. And even if we are limited to just semi-auto weapons, how many rounds do you think a person could get off in a ten-minute period with a semi-auto assault rifle and a dozen or more 100 round clips?

And listen, I know what you're going to ask. What makes an assault weapon different than, let's say, a Remington 750 semi-automatic .308? Well, they were never set up to be a fully automatic weapon so to my knowledge, there is no attachment or add-on that would make them fully automatic. Also, the clip only holds 4 shells and one in the chamber and you can't buy a hundred round clip that fits it. The largest clip or magazine for that gun I found was ten-rounds. To me, that's a big difference but in all honesty, if you think they're the same then I'm ok with treating them the same and maybe we should talk about whether or not anyone needs even a semi-auto rifle. After doing quite a bit of research, the bottom line is what the gun can be set up to do and causing mass amounts of destruction in a very short period of time seems to be the consistent attribute for assault style weapons whether they are handguns, shotguns or rifles.

Do you know what the percentage is of AR-15 style weapons versus hunting rifles that are available to the public? Nobody does but estimates from a few different sources puts the AR-15 style of rifle at around 1%. As far as the number of other assault style weapons? I think it's safe to say that they're numbers are also not that significant in the grand scheme of gun ownership, which tells me the people that own them are definitely in the minority. Again, most hunters and outdoors enthusiasts really don't care to own them so what are we fighting for? Why do we need them?

The NRA keeps digging its heals in by releasing statements that put the blame on the ATF for not banning bump stocks years ago and instead of supporting legislation to address the problem, they're trying to pass legislation that puts more guns on the streets suggesting we would be safer if "more of the good guys had guns instead of the bad guys." The real research is overwhelmingly consistent in that more guns create more gun violence and the vast majority of the victims are innocent people, kids, and unintended targets. The likelihood that someone actually defends themselves in an act of violence is far less than someone being either accidentally killed or the gun being used on themselves. Those are the facts but the NRA will tell you otherwise in spite of all the data.

So what do we do? If you're a sportsman or woman and you want to protect your rights, help lead the charge for a safer gun culture and tell your representatives that you want to protect your heritage as a hunter and an outdoor enthusiast but also realize there might have to be some compromise. Tell those representatives to grow a pair and stand up to the NRA. Join in on the discussion and seek out the facts and support those people and organizations that want to make you safer. If you're dumping money into the NRA in membership fees and donations, I would suggest you stop. At the least, I'd tell Mr. LaPierre that you're unhappy with where the NRA has gone in the last 45 years and you'd like him to be a part of the solution. Ask him what the point of a freer America is if you're dead. Tell him you also want a safer America and hold him to that.

Keep 'em where they live...