THE COLLECTIVE PUBLIC FACES WILL BE...
MADE UP OF THE USUAL SUSPECTS: Rick Perry and Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum and the ever-mustached John Bolton - these yahoo crusaders will once again be loudly pounding the drums of freedom, trembling with disgust at the terrifying thought that anyone would dare to oppose them. All of them will be gathered in Houston, Texas in May of next year for the 142nd Annual Meeting of the National Rifle Association.
Their steel faces and inflamed eyes, their tearful and apocalyptic solutions to American freedom: more pistols and rifles and automatic weaponry. Led by Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice-president of the organization, a man who once described federal agents as, "Jack-booted government thugs, who wear Nazi bucket helments and black storm trooper uniforms," they are desperate for a new enemy.
They have found one, and as usual, it is other Americans with some degree of sanity and self-respect and human-decency, those who remember the day when a man named Adam Lanza entered the Sandy Hook Elementry School in Newtown, Connecticut on the 14th day of December in 2012 with an automatic weapon in his hand, and cut down 26 innocent people, 20 of whom were first-graders; as well as the many more who followed in the year since that godawful incident.
Basically, LaPierre is a professional lobbyist. That is to say that, like a priest, a theologian or a romantic revolutionary, he is exclusively dedicated to the service of gun manufacturers. LaPierre's gun-toting vision is not limited to the inarguable formulas for the respect of others lives, complete legal and political equality and full opportunity for those opposed to his stance. Like most megalomaniacs he doesn't want opposition. He wants to overthrow the entire system of those who simply want background checks. During the past decade, when the country shifted to the left and millions of Americans rejected the harder ideologies of the NRA, LaPierre labored on with revolutionary zeal.
That zeal was shaped by the social upheavals when the Tea Party, with no positive program, arrived upon the scene. Men and women and children with an almost religious embrace of "The Second Amendment," found both both a focus and an engine for LaPierre. PaPierre's basic formulation was simple: "President Obama is trying to take your guns away."
But for all LaPierre's passion and occasional brilliance, even some gun-toting folk who applaud his zeal find some of his vision indefensible. He dismisses them all, firm in his belief that he has discovered the truth. His common enemy is that vague concept: background checks. LaPierre's basic legal theory is that gun discrimination is a form of governmental intrusion of "the right to bear arms." He then instituted what he called "The School Shield Program," which would allow every school in America to have an armed police presence. And he has had some limited success.
But the NRA never surrenders. They have gathered various mountebanks from the religious right, have written articles, given interviews and held public hearings, vetoed political descent behind voters who kicked opponents out of office, and put a halt to any Congressional point of view. Back in 2000, LaPierre said that Bill Clinton tolerated a certain amount of gun violence to score points for gun control and for his party, to which his spokesman, John Lockhart, replied, "...this is really sick rhetoric and should be reputed by anyone who hears it."
That is the heart of this grim little crusade. LaPierre has grander plans for us all. Like the wonderful folks who brought us Prohibition, he wants he and his allies to impose their vision and their rules on the entire country, the furious, fear-driven shoot-'em-up visions to become the law of the land.
Surely, that requires a sane response from the rest of us. In the sad and bitter world of Wayne LaPierre, there is no wide understanding of a species capable of living life without being armed-to-the-teeth, of forgiving our endless desire to have another solution, whatever that solution may turn out to be. And I hope that my grandchildren will never forced to live in his fearful new world.
MADE UP OF THE USUAL SUSPECTS: Rick Perry and Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum and the ever-mustached John Bolton - these yahoo crusaders will once again be loudly pounding the drums of freedom, trembling with disgust at the terrifying thought that anyone would dare to oppose them. All of them will be gathered in Houston, Texas in May of next year for the 142nd Annual Meeting of the National Rifle Association.
Their steel faces and inflamed eyes, their tearful and apocalyptic solutions to American freedom: more pistols and rifles and automatic weaponry. Led by Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice-president of the organization, a man who once described federal agents as, "Jack-booted government thugs, who wear Nazi bucket helments and black storm trooper uniforms," they are desperate for a new enemy.
They have found one, and as usual, it is other Americans with some degree of sanity and self-respect and human-decency, those who remember the day when a man named Adam Lanza entered the Sandy Hook Elementry School in Newtown, Connecticut on the 14th day of December in 2012 with an automatic weapon in his hand, and cut down 26 innocent people, 20 of whom were first-graders; as well as the many more who followed in the year since that godawful incident.
Basically, LaPierre is a professional lobbyist. That is to say that, like a priest, a theologian or a romantic revolutionary, he is exclusively dedicated to the service of gun manufacturers. LaPierre's gun-toting vision is not limited to the inarguable formulas for the respect of others lives, complete legal and political equality and full opportunity for those opposed to his stance. Like most megalomaniacs he doesn't want opposition. He wants to overthrow the entire system of those who simply want background checks. During the past decade, when the country shifted to the left and millions of Americans rejected the harder ideologies of the NRA, LaPierre labored on with revolutionary zeal.
That zeal was shaped by the social upheavals when the Tea Party, with no positive program, arrived upon the scene. Men and women and children with an almost religious embrace of "The Second Amendment," found both both a focus and an engine for LaPierre. PaPierre's basic formulation was simple: "President Obama is trying to take your guns away."
But for all LaPierre's passion and occasional brilliance, even some gun-toting folk who applaud his zeal find some of his vision indefensible. He dismisses them all, firm in his belief that he has discovered the truth. His common enemy is that vague concept: background checks. LaPierre's basic legal theory is that gun discrimination is a form of governmental intrusion of "the right to bear arms." He then instituted what he called "The School Shield Program," which would allow every school in America to have an armed police presence. And he has had some limited success.
But the NRA never surrenders. They have gathered various mountebanks from the religious right, have written articles, given interviews and held public hearings, vetoed political descent behind voters who kicked opponents out of office, and put a halt to any Congressional point of view. Back in 2000, LaPierre said that Bill Clinton tolerated a certain amount of gun violence to score points for gun control and for his party, to which his spokesman, John Lockhart, replied, "...this is really sick rhetoric and should be reputed by anyone who hears it."
That is the heart of this grim little crusade. LaPierre has grander plans for us all. Like the wonderful folks who brought us Prohibition, he wants he and his allies to impose their vision and their rules on the entire country, the furious, fear-driven shoot-'em-up visions to become the law of the land.
Surely, that requires a sane response from the rest of us. In the sad and bitter world of Wayne LaPierre, there is no wide understanding of a species capable of living life without being armed-to-the-teeth, of forgiving our endless desire to have another solution, whatever that solution may turn out to be. And I hope that my grandchildren will never forced to live in his fearful new world.
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