Wayne LaPierre is the long-reigning CEO of The National Rifle Association (NRA). He is primarily responsible for duping Americans into believing that the NRA does more to protect American liberty than the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.
In fact, to listen to LaPierre, you’d think the most sacred of all Constitutional rights is the one to buy guns … of any kind. Never mind that no such right even exists.
Here is what I wrote about gun rights and the NRA’s true mission in “The Second Amendment and Gun Control,” December 19, 2012:
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The Second Amendment specifically refers to ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.’ No doubt the framers thought it necessary because the American people might have to mount a second revolution if their own government became too tyrannical. But I suspect they thought this militia was necessary primarily to guard against enemies foreign (namely the avenging British), not domestic.
Whatever the case, the framers drafted this amendment 225 years ago. But they would not have even thought about it if, back then, the United States had the well regulated police forces, to say nothing of the well regulated military forces, it has today.
It’s arguable therefore that the Second Amendment pertains primarily to those actively involved in ensuring national security. This means that nobody else has the right to ‘keep and bear arms.’ After all, the framers could not conceive of a US government so powerful (as it is today) that mounting a second revolution against it (no matter how tyrannical it becomes) would constitute mass suicide.
Still, I would concede that keeping and bearing six-cylinder handguns and double-barrel shotguns (for home protection) and single-shot rifles (for hunting) do not violate the spirit of the Second Amendment. But it would violate both its letter and spirit for civilians to keep and bear arms of any other type (e.g., assault weapons). Period!
Too many anti-gun advocates argue for a ban on all guns. But they are just as irrational as anti-immigration advocates who argue for the deportation of all illegal immigrants. Likewise, too many pro-gun advocates argue that civilians have the right to keep and bear everything from semi-automatic pistols to assault rifles (with magazines that carry 100 rounds). But they are just as irrational as pro-life advocates who argue that abortions should be illegal even in cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. …
[T]he NRA has perpetrated a brazen and unconscionable fraud on the American people by pretending to be arch defenders of their right to keep and bear arms.
Because the NRA is just the lobbying arm of gun manufacturers, and its sole mission is to ensure that those manufacturers have the right to sell as many guns of every type to as many people as possible. Period!
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Unfortunately, the stupidity of its members knows no bounds. This is why no amount of reasoning, let alone Constitutional teaching, will disabuse them of their willingness to buy whatever the NRA says … and sells.
Only this explains so many continuing to pay into the NRA’s coffers for nothing more than scaremongering political rhetoric. This, despite the clear and persistent danger scandals like this pose to their hard-earned dollars:
A series of internal National Rifle Association documents leaked online over the weekend, detailing lavish six-figure spending on clothing and travel expenses for CEO Wayne LaPierre. …
These developments, combined with a cascade of stories about other incidents of runaway spending at the gun rights organization, especially rankled former rank-and-file NRA employees.
They told NPR about low wages, pension problems and a culture of fear within the organization that treated ordinary staff very differently than its leadership.
(NPR, May 15, 2019)
No less a journalist than Katie Couric tried to warn NRA members that their association was more about guns than liberty. I commented on her futile efforts in “Under the Gun Appeals to Common Sense of NRA Members. Good Luck With That…,” May 16, 2016.
Sadly, NRA members will continue to believe that buying guns is key to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And this, no matter how commonplace mass shootings become.
As it happens, the latest was on Friday. A lone gunman killed 12 people in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the state where the NRA is headquartered. There have already been 150 mass shootings this year alone. But LaPierre and the NRA couldn’t care less.
Related commentaries:
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