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The NRA? As a self identified left-of-centre liberal, most of those who know me would be shocked to know that I had had any kind of association with the NRA. But I did. Thanks to Groupon.
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Last year, the NRA had organized a Small Arms Training class in a nearby Massachusetts town and I always had a nerdy engineering driven interest in guns. This was an opportunity to learn about guns hands-on in the relative safety of a shooting range under the supervision of certified instructors. I could not let this pass.
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To tell you the truth, I was mightily queasy about what an NRA "training" might entail, very much due to the biased image of the NRA I had developed from constant lampooning on the Colbert Report. Funny as Colbert is, reaching across the aisle is not his forte. Die-hard fan of Stephen Colbert I remain but my half-a-day of training left me with a mightily positive opinion of the NRA [Please read this blog post at least through the next two paragraphs for my final opinion]
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This was immediately in the aftermath of the Aurora Colorado movie theatre massacre but all the class focused on was on responsible gun ownership. Sure, there was the usual short spiel about how the gun maniacs/mass murderers only attacked places where people are unarmed but on the whole, it was about being aware of the dangers and duties of being a gun carrying citizen. The instructors were ex-cops and ex-military men. They spoke with genuine gravity about why guns were not toys. I was impressed. [Please keep reading!]
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Then came the horror at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. When Wayne LaPierre, NRA's Executive VP came up to the press and said words to the tune of "If only the school had armed guards...", my hitherto 'good' impression of the NRA was blown out of the water. If someone's solution involves employing semi-automatic rifle carrying guards at every school for toddlers across the 3rd largest country in the world, it leaves little room for doubt on whose payroll they are.
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What do I think about the right to bear arms? I think it is a law which had its roots in the time when the USA was still an unexplored frontier and self-help was the only help. Times have moved on since. People around the world know so much about the USA now that they keep requesting it to get out of their faces and want it to go do its own thing. The Wild West lives on in Hollywood and Seth McFarlane's imagination but that's about it.
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The argument for the USA's Founding Fathers supposedly wanting to maintain armed militia to 'fight' an autocratic federal government is easily dismissed. If in accordance to all government conspiracy nightmares, the Navy Seal Team 6 decides to pay you a visit in the middle of the night, hate to be the one to break it to you but no amount of civilian gun training will protect you from defeat. Ask Osama Bin Laden. Oh wait... In a face-off between well trained professionals and panicked amateurs, the verdict is easy to predict. The days of muskets and bayonets are long gone. Keep an eye out for the drones!
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The question of whether if and how such an archaic law should be restricted is a dicier one. I happen to personally know a number of gun owners who are not the slavering lunatics that some sections of the left leaning mainstream media portray them to be. But they are very very protective of their gun rights. Clubbing them with the gun loonies is downright unfair. If a compromise is really sought, badmouthing them blindly is not the way to go.
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Tradition is an important thing and for some of these folks, guns represent that tradition - passed on from great-grandfathers to great-grandsons, about memories and experiences shared in the great outdoors. Hunting is something I would have a hard time picking up as a hobby simply because I love wildlife and nature too much but it is a skill which is important to retain as a link to our past. Some of the greatest conservationists were hunters too. Charles Sheldon (behind Denali National Park) and Jim Corbett (honored by Corbett National Park) spring to mind.
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The primary difficulty which the gun rights supporters seem to have is comprehending that guns had to do anything with the crimes that were committed. If they didn't have a gun, they would have used a knife or a bomb or a car, they insist. They would point to a case like Elliot Rodger from two days ago where he stabbed 3 people to death before taking his handguns on a shooting spree killing 3 more through a college town before crashing his car in an attempt to run over as many people as he could.
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Here's where reading through the tens of thousands of words of his twisted "My twisted world manifesto" would help. The number of times the NRA was mentioned in his seething racist, class and money obsessed, inferiority complex/superiority complex infused and ultimately sad diatribe against society? Zero times. The number of sentences about guns or his love for guns in the dozens of pages of his self-obsessed vision of society and his "Day of Retribution"? Two or three measly sentences.
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Ha! We told ya! So would say the advocates for unrestricted gun rights. Just a lone loony tune in whose hands guns were just another tool. Why don't people talk about the knife that he used or the car that he plowed through the crowds? Why are the guns the focus?
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Here's why. When Elliot Rodger went to buy a knife, he wouldn't be asked why he wanted one. He didn't need to be. It for all practical purposes was to chop vegetables for his meal. When Elliot Rodger got a BMW from his parents, it wasn't really big news because he needed a ride to get to college. But when Elliot Rodger went to buy 3 handguns from 3 different shops, that was the only time the government should have asked upfront "Why?" Because guns have only one ultimate purpose and owners have to wisen up to their responsibilities.
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Yes, I understand that target practice at a shooting range is not a crime and there is a sporting aspect to it. Yes, I understand that in a remote location where police help is dozens of minutes if not hours away from arriving, having a gun cabinet makes sense. Yes, I understand that merely talking about guns & their technology is just a hobby like any other.
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What doesn't make sense is an irrational fear that a central government database is a covert Communist manifesto to eventually snatch all your guns. What doesn't make sense is that the government can't even ask why you need to stockpile a mini arsenal for which impending war. What doesn't make sense is that gun people don't see how easy it is for someone with an agenda to unleash terrible carnage by the little trigger located at the end of his fingers.
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Go back to Elliot Rodger's manifesto and read how warped his world view was - his obsession with sex and of his rejection by 'every girl in the world', girls he didn't even have the courage to talk to. Read how he turned everything into a conspiracy against his "deserved greatness" and on how on his Day of Retribution, he would be the God of the screaming masses. Read of how he was afraid of his own death but was driven by a 'higher' purpose, to rid the world of 'evil' women and put the remaining ones in their 'rightful' place, subservient to 'great' men like him.
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All the ravings of a madman, I assure you, but think of the smugness that such a man would have when he is looking at you from behind the barrel of a gun. Guns do have that peculiar charm for any madman, anyone who rightfully or wrongfully assumes that he deserves better. The great equalizer in his mad eyes, the relentless machine of death in the eyes of his innocent victims. A quick squeeze of the trigger and his violent visions of 'justice' come to fruition.
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There is too much frustration and anger and argument in our world. Everyone has their own reasons, warped or not, to seek a solution. With a gun handy, all too often, the so called 'solution' is rash and easy to execute. The gun is more than a tool for self-defense; in the wrong hands it is a short-cut to disaster.
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Men and women trained in the art of protection, the police and the armed forces, do need their guns but they need it only because without it, they would be unable to fulfill their duty in dangerous situations. Even they snap sometimes, they who spend day in and day out next to these metal one way solutions, they who know the true costs of pulling that trigger. They are also answerable to all for every time they touch their weapons and on how they use them.
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Why should a normal person living a normal life expect to go through his life unquestioned about this power he holds at his fingertips? Power that can be so easily misdirected, power that can be so easily brandished, power that can so easily ruin lives forever. Yes, the weapons were bought with personal money, not government but accountability for such powers is crucial and no amount of whinging can obscure that.
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The fact that the gun rights debate has been reduced to a shouting match is showing its tragic consequences, most recently in Isla Vista. On a word-by-word re-publication of Eliot Rodger's 'manifesto' on Scribd.com, there were 180 plus Likes! Kids who would not go to his lengths but appreciate his 'standing up' for them.
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Cho Seung Hui, who in the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007 shot dead 32 people, before he was stopped, had a similar 'anti bully' agenda. These feelings of rage are real, surrounding us and unfortunately so are the tools to 'pay back'. Yes, the worst cases are cases of mental health issues too but saying these are mental health issues alone is getting a bit too difficult to give credence to.
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Liberals say that gun owners won't give an inch and gun owners say that if they give an inch, liberals will snatch a mile. Paranoia afflicts both sides equally. The gun owners have a powerful financial lobby of gun-makers and the NRA behind them. The gun restrictions lobby has the support of the people in sheer numbers but not of the politicians who depend heavily on small arms manufacturers for campaign funding.
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A compromise, if it is ever reached, will definitely leave one side fuming but it is better than making no progress at all. As the only developed country in the world which still has such a huge gun owning civilian population, the US represents a special case. Its specific history has a big part to play in its gun culture and like all culture, it has its glaring share of shortcomings which need to be reviewed and modified.
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The shrill claims of equating guns with freedom ring hollow when the list of men, women and children killed by gun violence keeps growing ever longer. The price of freedom is to be cognizant of the responsibilities that come with it and how those responsibilities change as time moves on. Guns are not the price of freedom, planning for their dual edged reality is.
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