The Shame of the NRA

Yesterday, in Colorado Springs, the blood on the hands of Wayne LaPierre and all those that fund, support and rabble rouse behind the NRA got a little redder, a little stickier….a little harder to wash off.  But it will not matter.  They will not be shamed.  They do not care about the children in schools murdered in cold blood because of the ease in which anyone, even crazy people, can get weapons.  They do not care about innocent lives cut short in the middle of a movie, at a shopping center, in a health clinic or simply driving home from work.  Nowhere is safe from those who use our gun laws to make this NRA Enabled Terrorism so easy.

As a nation, we watched in well-practiced horror as gunmen shot up various places in and around Paris…we demanded our leaders do something, blame someone, bomb someone.  Might I suggest we bomb the NRA headquarters?  It would be at least as effective as our bombing Iraq.  Too strong a reaction you say?  Well, if one compares the lives lost via gun violence in the United States versus lives lost via terrorism, it is immediately apparent we are pursuing the wrong enemy.  As usual, we are fighting the wrong war, at the wrong time in the wrong manner.  If we are to truly make our country safer, we need to eliminate such easy access to guns, and shift the blame for our woes from Syrian refugees to the executives of the NRA that make even reasonable gun control possible.

Don’t get me wrong though.  I am not in favor of “reasonable” gun control.  I want it to be unreasonable.  I want to make it damn difficult to get a gun.  Want to hunt a deer or an elk? Better get your application in well in advance so we can check you out from fifteen different angles.  Do you really want to hunt a defenseless animal or are you thinking you might want to take out defenseless teenagers at the mall.  Let’s err on the side of caution, just as Paris and Brussels have done as they declare a state of emergency.  And don’t blame me, or President Obama or anyone else for “taking away your guns”.  BLAME LaPIERRE!  BLAME THE NRA…for steadfastly derailing any attempt to limit guns, ammunition, caliber or lethality in the quest to arm anyone who wants to be armed.  Need an AK-47?…sure, $179.00 please.  What if we had reasonable restrictions?  What if there were limits on the number and killing power of the weapons an individual could purchase or possess?  Would it make a difference?  Some statistics suggest it would.  And if not, it would be a start.   

As all things in this nation, it boils down to money...spineless politicians won’t support gun control because in turn, the NRA and their money will not support them.  Men and women who claim to want to protect our nation…from Syrians, Ebola, taxation, abortion, or terrorism…really only want to protect their political war chests.  So, how can we monetize gun control…turn it in to a profit driven device?  Well here is a thought: what if we simply require insurance policies on each gun purchase…yearly fees with premiums based on the lethal capacity of each weapon…and no discounts for multiple guns…In fact just the opposite…the more guns you own, the more costly each policy!  If you are a rightwing nut job, your premiums will be higher.  An AK-47 will be more costly than say a .22 caliber revolver.  Leave it to the insurance companies to decide if they want to provide a policy…as my Republican friends would say, “Let the marketplace decide!”.  Insurance companies will get rich, gun owners will be poorer, and maybe just maybe, the NRA will lose it’s sway over the political leadership of the country.  Or perhaps they will know a good thing when they see it, and go into the insurance business and sell the policies themselves…how ironic it would be if you got turned down for gun ownership by the NRA?  I can dream, no?