The NRA Created the Problem That Requires the Solution They Always Wanted

In the same way the Republicon Party deliberately drove up the debt in order to use it as the excuse to get rid of the social programs they’ve always despised, the NRA deliberately caused the country’s gun problem in order to use it as the excuse to get rid of the gun laws they’ve always despised.

The Republicons drove up the debt with a strategy they called ‘Starve the Beast.’ This economic policy was implemented by the Reagan and Bush Jr. administrations by cutting any and every tax they could get their hands on while hugely increasing spending. They grew the Beast to mammoth proportions and simultaneously cut off its food supply. Now they are saying we need to solve the problem of the debt by getting rid of those programs they hate. A conservative’s dreams come true.

The NRA’s strategy was to ferociously oppose, thwart and sabotage any and every gun control law that ever came up. They worked together with the gun manufacturers to flood the country with a dizzying array of diabolical weapons, some of which can kill a hundred people in seconds. Thanks to the NRA, these weapons are unregistered, unaccounted for and easily obtained by any criminal and homicidal maniac who wants one. Now they say we need to solve this problem by allowing guns to invade every single space in our lives. A gun lover’s dreams come true.

Both of these groups circumvented the will and the wellbeing of the general public. They both used specious, fallacious and underhanded arguments to support their positions and attack their opponents. They both employed the unfair and undemocratic use of money to target politicians who wouldn’t bend to their will. They both pursued policies that only benefited their own narrow self-interests while damaging the health and wellbeing of both the people and the economy. And they both appear to be on the verge of accomplishing their goal of imposing their extremist views on the entire country, the vast majority of who oppose those views.

(An interesting aside. The radical-right is always accusing the Government of being tyrannical whenever it does something they don’t like. That’s why they say we need guns in the first place. To ‘take out’ the politicians ‘we’ think are tyrannical. But why would ‘we’ want to ‘take out’ the politicians we voted into office? Well, of course ‘we’ wouldn’t. The ‘we’ is actually ‘they’ and the ‘they’ is actually the radical-right nutbags. And what is those nutbags’ definition of ‘tyranny?’ Like I said, it’s whatever policy they don’t like, which happens whenever they lose an election. Here’s a better definition of tyranny: two unelected creeps – Wayne LaPierre and Grover Norquist – pay themselves millions of dollars and then circumvent the democratic process in order to impose their harmful and dangerous minority views on the entire country, depriving citizens of their Constitutional rights in the process. What a couple of scumbags.)

There is one major and unfortunate difference, though, between the Recons’ ‘Starve the Beast’ policy and the NRA’s ‘unfettered access to any kind of gun they feel like having’ policy. There is a much better and fairer alternative to the ‘Starve the Beast’ policy of even more tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for everyone else. That would be significant spending cuts to the Military, a single-payer universal healthcare system and a restoration of the Clinton-era tax rates, for everyone, with higher added brackets for the super-wealthy that top out at 50%, the same top rate as Reagan’s first term when the conservalibertarians bragged that that tax rate got us out of the second worst recession since the Great Depression and created millions of jobs.

However, in the case of gun-control policy, because of the terrible predicament that the NRA has put this country in, there is no better alternative than to allow guns to invade every single space in our lives, and by this I mean allowing law-abiding citizens to carry guns in places many of us might think to be inappropriate, repugnant or downright crazy. As hard as it is for many of us to admit, the logic and the evidence of concealed carry permits seems irrefutable. Most Americans realize this. This is why the NRA has been winning the debate so far. (Their positions on other forms of gun control are a completely different story, though.) The sad truth is guns have already invaded every single space in our lives. The NRA never allowed our society to adjust from the 18th century world when the 2nd Amendment was written to the modern one we live in today. The NRA forced us to live in a wild, wild, west society where the gun-nuts and the free market rule us and our gun control laws are a ridiculous joke. And, instead of muskets or even six-shooters, we have gun manufacturers making and selling with impunity the most lethal 21st century weaponry devised by man. Under those circumstances, it’s better to have a gun yourself than not to.

I’m not the only liberal to come to this conclusion. I recently saw an interview with Craig R. Whitney, a former reporter and editor at The New York Times, about a book he wrote called “Living With Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment.” Jeffry Goldberg wrote an article in the Dec. issue of The Atlantic titled “The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control).” Ezra Klein recently hosted Rachel Maddow’s show where he covered the same ground and interviewed a criminologist named Richard Rosenfeld. All of these persons elaborated on some of the points I made in this post, plus they offered policy recommendations that go beyond relaxing certain gun restrictions like concealed carry.

I agree with and appreciate most of what they said. They all acknowledged some realities that most liberals find very hard to accept. I give them a lot of credit for this. This is the first step in formulating a best course of action. Goldberg, in particular, wrote a very good article. However, I do have some complaints. These have to do with things they didn’t say and the way they said some of the things they did say. Also, they didn’t go far enough in their policy recommendations.

In upcoming posts I will outline specifically what these things said and not said are. I will also give my own policy recommendations. And I will give my explanation of why the NRA has been winning the debate on guns despite the fact that their gun policies (except for concealed carry) are completely insane.