The NRA wields astonishing influence on public opinion and election outcomes. It uses incessant propaganda to make the asinine seem reasonable—insisting, for example, that bona fide sportsmen need rapid-fire rifles to bag rabbits. It even defends the liberty of disturbed individuals with violent histories to obtain weapons of mass murder with nothing but twitching greenbacks and bottled fury. On Friday, its top lobbyist said the best response to the problem of school violence is more guns in the schools.
With the financial backing of the lucrative gun industry as well as its 4 million dues-paying members, it keeps politicians cowed and beholden through prodigious lobbying and campaign spending. It is always the loudest voice in the debate over controlling the kinds of guns and ammo that enable enraged men to become mass killers.
Activist groups like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence doggedly strive to counter the NRA, but they have few members and operate at a huge monetary disadvantage. If those who believe in controlling dangerous weaponry and ammunition are to succeed, they must forge a broad, sustained grass-roots movement—a movement like those that ultimately enacted tough drunk-driving laws and contained the lethality of Big Tobacco.
Such movements arise only when a critical mass of moderate citizens—those who tell pollsters they “somewhat” favor change—turn definite in their convictions and enroll as activists. And the best recruitment opportunities are moments of public outrage: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the Stonewall riots, Kent State University.
We stand at such a moment. A generation from now, history may note that the dominant middle Americans who had only somewhat favored a ban on semiautomatic rifles and somewhat favored background checks for purchases at gun shows finally had enough when a desperately ill young man stormed into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, with a legally purchased Bushmaster AR-15 .223 semiautomatic rifle and a cache of 30-round magazines and murdered 20 little kids, 6- and 7-year-olds who were learning to spell and subtract and wait their turn.
An attitude shift has begun. A Pew Research poll released a week after the massacre found that 49 percent of respondents are more concerned with controlling gun ownership while 42 percent say it’s more important to protect gun ownership rights. That’s a tilt toward control from the poll taken after this summer’s mass killing at a theater in Aurora, Colorado.
Even more promising, the true believers—those who make things happen or keep them from happening—now have the upper hand: 42 percent of respondents strongly believe it’s more important to control ownership while 37 percent strongly favor ownership rights.
The visceral response is beginning to translate into service: Participation in the online Demand a Plan campaign, which advocates background checks for every gun buyer and nationwide bans on semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity ammunition clips, has soared since Sandy Hook exploded into our consciousness.
By harnessing their outrage, those who have grown weary of witnessing slaughter can make this moment the fulcrum of historic change. Those who ache for the unlived lives and grieving families of Newtown must contribute cash, write to Salem and Washington, gather signatures, and speak out at public meetings.
Dec. 14, 2012, can mark the moment when a critical mass of citizens commanded their representatives to defy the fearsome NRA. That’s what it will take to boot the big badass of the beltway.
This article appears in Dec 27, 2012 – Jan 2, 2013.
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lets not give up our liberty Im pretty sure the thousands of people who died who gave their life defending the right to bear arms without the consent of the government would disagree. would all those people defended this country with their life if they knew it was just going to be turned in to europe threw subversion i don’t think so not to mention the founding fathers who wrote the constitution and enacted all these rights would disagree with the person who wrote these globalist propaganda lies. maybe this person should move to Europe or Russia or China cause all these places agree with his article. The constitution clearly states if you do some history the foundation of the right to bear arms is given to the people by god not the government for the purpose of defending them selves against corrupt government legislation THAT’S IT hunting has nothing to with it at all!!!!! this persons article is considered a form of political subversion along with the press known as the world news or as i like to call it fake news controlled by big business and corporations with unlimited money and political influence on peoples opinion far more than the NRA has or will ever have. this is just common sense for any one with a brain. Europe banned guns and shortly after their crime rates doubled. what about knives may be i should register my knives next . 2007- 30K people killed with knives, 30K guns, 82K car accidents, 440K tobacco .
what about all the lives guns have saved.(no no no lets blame the guns because the actions of one kid) seems like childish fear-mongering.
politicians , bureaucrats would have you believe that too much freedom will result in chaos. therefore we should gladly give up some of our RIGHTS for the good of the community. in other words, people acting in the name of government, say we need more laws to enforce even if we give up some rights in the process they believe the more laws we have the more control, thus a better society. this theory may sound good on paper and apparently many of our leaders think this way, as evidence by the thousands of new laws are added to the books each year in this country. but no matter how cleverly this Marxist argument is made , the hard fact is that whenever you give up a RIGHT you lose a FREE CHOICE!!!!!
this adds another control. controls real name is bondage!!! the logical conclusion would be, if giving up your rights produces a better society, then by giving up all our rights we could produce a perfect society. we could chain everyone to a tree for lack of trust. this may prevent a crime , but it would destroy privacy which if the heart beat of freedom. it would also destroy trust which is the foundation of dignity rather than giving up our rights. instead of giving up rights we should be giving up wrongs the opposite of control is not chaos more laws do not make less criminals for a better society we must give up wrongs, not rights
the communist manifest or the article this person wrote represents a misguided philosophy, which teaches the citizens to give up their rights for the sake of the common good, but always ends up in a police state this is called preventative justice. control is the key concept
after 911 you think things it would be better and all fixed cause new laws created to save us from bad terrorist were enacted. as a result if you look it up more and more control. (google search tsa arrested for rape u get 2,550,000 results ) we are now seeing thousand of family’s mothers- fathers and children 5 -7 years old crippled people the elderly being sexually molested and subjected to invasive tsa putdowns touching their private parts putting their hands in their diaper to search for terrorist weapons with out the consent of the parents as if the parents have any choice at all in today’s current situation as a result of the tragedy on 911 and the governments new out look on Americans as potential terrorists . all in the name of your safety. and this happens to thousand of kids and family’s what about all the people who have been raped or had stuff stolen by the tsa how are you going to fix that one. who holds the government and the tsa accountable for their actions. the answer is the people.
do you get it its not about guns its a matter of Principal and god given rights maybe while all you gun haters are riding around on you high horse being led around by the sold out press- cult belligerently blaming the NRA or any one with a gun you could stop for just a second and think about the real issue here. that the people are now all criminals and terrorist . that means you. this is sad and the opposite of freedom and should not be the new norm, but is proving to be. thanks to sold out big corp media.
by the way i do not own a gun i cannot buy one with my Hawaii Id but my girlfriend owns two. she was born in redmond i was born and raised in Hawaii i lived there till i was thirty i moved to bend cause i love nature and i love the peoples vibe here i love bend. In Hawaii there’s a lot of crime and FAR FAR LESS GUNS. people have respect here probably cause they have to . because who wants to break into someones house who owns a gun? no one!! and who wants to go shoot up a school when their teachers are armed and trained and ready? no one!! if you regulate the sale of guns to normal people it will inherently put the guns in the hands of criminals who obtain the guns by illegal means.maybe i should be thrown in jail for even questioning the matter im sure because Im speaking out im considered to be a terrorist and and will probably be put on some black ops American no fly list or something. what about all the kids killed in the wars through out the world right now by bombs our government makes.maybe the government should stop killing thousands kids in foreign nations and calling them insurgents and collateral damage. guns are not the problem stupid people are. guns do not kill people stupid people kill people end of story. there is no argument!!!!!!!
i would encourage others if they agree, to speak out against this cleverly disguised tyranny regardless of what political circus is promoting!!!!
the only people in my life i feel terrorized by is people like the tsa when i ask to get a pat down instead of the body scanners( proven to cause cancer) or a police-peace officer who breaks his oath to protect the people and up hold the constitution glaring at me like i am a criminal when i have dome nothing wrong. i feel terrorized by the person who wrote the sandy hook article implying everyone is mentality unstable now some how and action must be taken and you are not worthy of your god given rights!!!
No one in history has died defending the 2nd Amendment. That’s pure hype. Pearl Harbor was not about attacking the 2nd Amendment. 911 didn’t happen because Bin Ladin wanted your AK-47. He had plenty of those. Those are the only two times in history we have been attacked. All the other conflicts and wars we have been involved in were optional and none of them were about defending the 2nd Amendment.
Something like 30,000 men died in one day at the battle of Antietam during the Civil War. That war went on for five years and cost millions of lives over something that no one today would seriously question – that slavery is wrong, a crime against humanity. There never was anything sacred about the right own another human being, though proponents at the time like to site passages in the Bible pertaining to slave holding. Likewise, there is nothing sacred about the right to own a gun. The NRA has been trying to enshrine the 2nd Amendment has some kind of “holy of holy’s”, but the fact is, proved by history, that just because something is written in the Constitution does not always mean it’s right, or good for the nation. .
Another bit of tripe is the idea that gun owner’s form some kind of vanguard against tyranny. They don’t. Owning a gun doesn’t automatically make anyone a super hero, or a defender of the public good. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Owning a gun is no different than owning a vicious dog, or any other predator. Guns are lethal. They are intended to be, and if they weren’t no gun owner would have any reason to own one. The absurd idea that guns don’t kill people is preposterous – of course they do! Assault weapons in particular have no other function, or purpose.
Lots of things that we use every day kill people. Electricity, cars, boats, fire, medicine, food, swimming pools, etc. Any rational person understands that these common things can be dangerous if misused. We all accept regulation of our use of numerous personal possessions as the best way to provide as much safety as possible while deriving positive benefits from their use. Why should a gun, which primary and sole purpose is intended to be lethal, be any different?