Four days remain in 2013. That allows a serious note before we return to the frivolity of rock 'n roll and the travails of the Pups.
One week after the mass murder of children in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA responded by recommending that the Public fund armed police or guards at every school in the United States. Magnanimously, the NRA offered to train these potential guardians. Yes, its answer to gun violence is more guns.
Yet the NRA offered no suggestion for funding its recommendation. We can surmise that the NRA stands firmly against taxing weapons, accessories, or ammunition. Most likely, few with ties to the gun industry -- from manufacturer to retailer to gun show promoters to consumer to politician -- will agree to any increase in taxes.
During the course of the news event, the NRA blamed gun violence in the United States on the media, Hollywood, movies, video games, and not having guns at schools. The NRA also chided the media for mislabeling semi-automatic weapons with large capacity magazines as “machine guns” and for not telling the American public that larger caliber, more powerful guns were available for killing people.
The NRA “fix” would cost billions of dollars. And, even at that price, it would not cover theaters, shopping malls, college campuses, and other sites of recent shootings. It also overlooks the fact that a trained, armed guard was onsite at Columbine High School or that armed police were at the event where Gabby Giffords and others were shot.
Obviously, the NRA has no real solution to gun violence other than more guns -- “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” -- and perhaps trampling on the First Amendment rights of the media, movie-makers, and video game designers.
The inanity and intransigence of the “gun lobby” strikes me as bordering on the insane and inviting us to an apocalyptic and uncivilized United States. In the NRA’s world, everybody has a gun and shoot-outs would be common. Cars will sport bumper stickers that proudly proclaim “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
Doesn’t that sound eerily like the Wild West that Hollywood showed us for years? Didn’t the NRA blame Hollywood for gun violence in the United States?
Will the bumper sticker have an asterisk saying either “except at Columbine and Tucson” or “the good guys at Columbine and Tucson weren’t good enough”? Or will that NRA bumper sticker try for the truth: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with gun except . . .”?
Maybe the patent holes in its “fix” is why the NRA staged a media event which did not include any questions or interchange with the public. Realistically, the NRA, like politicians, knows that the public’s attention span is short and that its resolve quickly dissipates. The NRA’s strategy is clear: Throw out some B.S., wait for the buzz to die down, and encourage people to buy more guns.
Unfortunately, that strategy most likely will work. Today -- one week after the NRA media event -- the immediacy of Newtown is waning while gun sales are up. And soon enough everybody will be off to the new catastrophe or celebrated cause until . . . the next mass shooting!
One week after the mass murder of children in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA responded by recommending that the Public fund armed police or guards at every school in the United States. Magnanimously, the NRA offered to train these potential guardians. Yes, its answer to gun violence is more guns.
Yet the NRA offered no suggestion for funding its recommendation. We can surmise that the NRA stands firmly against taxing weapons, accessories, or ammunition. Most likely, few with ties to the gun industry -- from manufacturer to retailer to gun show promoters to consumer to politician -- will agree to any increase in taxes.
During the course of the news event, the NRA blamed gun violence in the United States on the media, Hollywood, movies, video games, and not having guns at schools. The NRA also chided the media for mislabeling semi-automatic weapons with large capacity magazines as “machine guns” and for not telling the American public that larger caliber, more powerful guns were available for killing people.
The NRA “fix” would cost billions of dollars. And, even at that price, it would not cover theaters, shopping malls, college campuses, and other sites of recent shootings. It also overlooks the fact that a trained, armed guard was onsite at Columbine High School or that armed police were at the event where Gabby Giffords and others were shot.
Obviously, the NRA has no real solution to gun violence other than more guns -- “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” -- and perhaps trampling on the First Amendment rights of the media, movie-makers, and video game designers.
The inanity and intransigence of the “gun lobby” strikes me as bordering on the insane and inviting us to an apocalyptic and uncivilized United States. In the NRA’s world, everybody has a gun and shoot-outs would be common. Cars will sport bumper stickers that proudly proclaim “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
Doesn’t that sound eerily like the Wild West that Hollywood showed us for years? Didn’t the NRA blame Hollywood for gun violence in the United States?
Will the bumper sticker have an asterisk saying either “except at Columbine and Tucson” or “the good guys at Columbine and Tucson weren’t good enough”? Or will that NRA bumper sticker try for the truth: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with gun except . . .”?
Maybe the patent holes in its “fix” is why the NRA staged a media event which did not include any questions or interchange with the public. Realistically, the NRA, like politicians, knows that the public’s attention span is short and that its resolve quickly dissipates. The NRA’s strategy is clear: Throw out some B.S., wait for the buzz to die down, and encourage people to buy more guns.
Unfortunately, that strategy most likely will work. Today -- one week after the NRA media event -- the immediacy of Newtown is waning while gun sales are up. And soon enough everybody will be off to the new catastrophe or celebrated cause until . . . the next mass shooting!