Editor’s note: Walt Amses is a educator and writer from North Calais.
Thanks to the National Rifle Association, Americans are 10 times more likely to be killed by each other than by terrorists. Since 9/11 more than 300,000 of our fellow citizens have died by the gun, the latest and most dreadful recent example, 20 children shot to death in their classrooms.
While the media asks when will it end, we become more and more acclimated to the idea that this will continue to happen. Each time it’s less surprising. And most certainly, every time there is a mass killing, someone else out there becomes convinced it’s a viable solution to whatever madness grips their soul.
The NRA staunchly opposes the very notion of a sane conversation about gun control. Their fantasy is the more guns the better. The more guns, the more likely it will be that an armed citizen will be there to “take out” the shooter. And this possibility will itself act as a deterrent. But it never happens, does it?
What we see is stock footage of heavily armed swat teams, state police and FTA agents, all arriving too late to stop the carnage. In the time it takes to dial 911, a hundred shots have been fired; dozens of bloody corpses lie still; while frantic parents run to the scene, clawing desperately at the hope that it wasn’t their kid.
If you don’t see the problem with gun show loopholes, no background checks and being able to instantaneously create a war zone at the elementary school, I’m sorry. You don’t even belong in this conversation.
Once an organization that promoted hunting and the safe handling of weapons, the NRA hasn’t discussed hunting for years. Guns are for killing people, plain and simple. We need guns to keep the government honest; “Jack booted thugs”….“cold dead hands” and all the rest of the unhinged, paranoid lunacy.
If you think you need enough guns to fight the Army, I’m sorry. You’re nuts. If you don’t see the problem with gun show loopholes, no background checks and being able to instantaneously create a war zone at the elementary school, I’m sorry. You don’t even belong in this conversation.
While the children in Connecticut were barely in the morgue, NRA apologist and Faux News shill Mike Huckabee picked at their bones for what he erroneously thought was political advantage, suggesting that “these things” are not surprising and happen when “God is removed from the classroom.”
But the myth of NRA’s political invincibility came crashing down on Election Day when it spent over $11 million to defeat President Obama and weigh in on seven senatorial races. It failed miserably by sizable margins. Its only win was in Arizona. Large majorities of Americans want common sense gun laws.
Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, said repeatedly that he was “all in” and urged voters to give Obama his “walking papers. Since LaPierre and his organization lost big, it should send a clear message, finally (hopefully) opening the door to a nationwide discussion about guns. Americans should demand that our representatives in Congress immediately make a commitment to ending this nightmare.
