According to the NRA, the president is a hypocritical elitist who is looking after his own children while not caring for the children of America. Have you seen the video: “NRA Stand and Fight – President Barack Obama… blah, blah, blah”?
I have to ask: Why such hostility?
The White House called the video repugnant. I call it appalling. Instead of rationally discussing the issue, the NRA has simply resorted to demagoguery (demagogue = a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people).
I have no personal vendetta against the NRA. Sportsmen, gun hobbyists, gun collectors, and gun lovers of all types have a right to meet collectively and to belong to organizations such as the NRA to promote the knowledge and skillful use of guns and gun ownership.
If you like guns, go for it. Have at it. Enjoy yourself. But why be so trigger happy, pointedly aiming and firing at anyone raising concerns, daring to suggest, for the sake of protecting our communities, that wiser and more measured and perhaps stricter safety-regulations, respecting the purchase and distribution of fire arms—especially military type assault weapons—need further consideration?
Does the NRA really believe that the second amendment to our United States Constitution is on the brink of being overthrown? If so, that’s simply irrational. There is no real and substantial threat to the second amendment. After all, it is the second amendment. First of all, the constitution cannot be changed so easily. Secondly, the right to bear arms is far too sacred in our American psyche, for it to be casually dropped, lost, or otherwise discarded. So why does the NRA feel so threatened in behalf of the second amendment? So much so, that it goes into hyper-reaction whenever any discussion about gun laws, gun control, and gun safety comes to the forefront in the American political scene.
The NRA has a proposal for making our communities safer. Their proposed solution: place armed security guards within our schools. But, instead of offering this idea as a talking point for further consideration by the general public—to discuss and decide on its own, whether or not it’s a good idea, bad idea, or an idea that needs improvement—they make it a battle cry, as if it’s the only proposal that all politicians and any solidly patriotic American should back.
I just don’t buy their idea. I personally think it’s a bad one. We are long past the days of gun-slinging cowboys walking around town with their gun holsters on their hips ready to draw and fire their six-shooters at the drop of a dime. I should think that, as a nation and a people, we have matured beyond that stage in our history.
That being said, should I therefore be targeted by the NRA as one of its enemies? I hope not. I’m not anti-NRA. I just disagree with their proposed solution and I wonder at their hyper-defensiveness. I simply don’t think that, what I would call, militarizing our schools with armed security, is the answer. I do not believe that such a policy would make our schools or communities any safer. That’s all.
Yet, I say this, wondering why the NRA feels so threatened by the likes of me or others who disagree with them? No one is talking about taking away all guns from all people and trashing the second amendment. So why is the NRA so reactionary, so extremist, and so unwilling to allow common sense, measured and balanced safety regulatory proposals to be placed on the table with respect to gun control? What are they so afraid of? After all, they’re the ones with the guns.
No comments:
Post a Comment