One Of My Readers Comments On The NRA

This comment on my blog from Solly is worthy of a stand-alone post.

Deke, I have to admit, I silently thought you were over the top in your posts on the NRA.  I was wrong.  The promised “want to be a part of the solution”  kabuki theater on display today at the NRA news conference was beneath contempt.  Yes, Wayne LaPierre, the problem is not enough guns, not enough guns in schools (gee, you want a federal mandate that each school has armed guards?  if that part of a conservative manifesto?) video games (would that be like the video game company the NRA partners with to create a shooting game?) and mental illness.  BUT, we can’t have a decent federal registry and background checks on ALL guns purchases, private, gun show and dealer to see if there is a court decision on mental illness.  If you buy a motor vehicle, whether from a private party, a car show, or a dealer, it is checked on the DMV data base to make sure it is street legal and not stolen, and that you don’t have child support arrears, parking tickets, OWI court orders preventing ownership or a past unpaid liability for an accident.  But we can’t check a goddamned gun sale for an assault weapon!  I thought it was hilarious that David Keene, the president of the NRA, started out the news conference by saying “this is the start of a conversation” on the problem, “but we’re not taking any questions.”  Doesn’t conversation imply two way discussion?  A good point was made in the news analysis that the NRA doesn’t represent its members, it represents the gun manufacturers.  Poll numbers show a majority of NRA members and hunters and gun owners in general support common sense gun control.   Only the NRA says the answer is mo’ guns, mo’ guns, mo’ guns.  Others countries, like Japan, has kids that play video games, other countries have mentally ill people in their midst, violent American movies are more popular in other countries than in the U.S.   What these other countries don’t have is the level of gun violence and easy access to hundreds of millions of guns that the U.S. has.  I hope there is a special place in hell for Wayne LaPierre and David Keene.