NRA convention

NRA convention hypocrisy

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nogunsat NRAWell, it’s that time of year again. The NRA convention trots out good old Wayne LaPierre, bearer of fear and paranoia, to whip up the crowd and make everyone want to go right out to buy a gun to protect themselves from all of the evilness out there. It’s mostly in the form of Democrats and those silly liberal gun violence prevention activists. We are a scary bunch for sure. We’re coming for their guns but just haven’t figured out how to find out where they are and how we would get them.

Never mind. They say we’re still coming. It’s going to be Armegeddon for sure. Or maybe a Civil War. That would be fun.

And for the first time in history, a sitting President addressed the convention for the 3rd time ( once as a candidate). Does anyone remember when the President sat in a room in the White House assuring victims and survivors after the Parkland shooting that he would do something about the epidemic of gun violence? Yes. He said he would. And then he taunted politicians about their fear of the NRA. What’s to be afraid of anyway?

Let’s watch what the President said and then reflect on the 180 degree turn around after spending time with NRA leaders:

We are talking about the lives of our children. Such hypocrisy and disingenuous ( and even lies) are disturbing to say the least. We are better than this.

Trump also believes (in his speech to the NRA) that the NRA just loves the country. Take a look:

“This is a great organization that loves this country,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Dallas. “The NRA is a truly great organization that loves this country. And we have a record crowd.”

This is Trump’s fourth consecutive address to the NRA’s annual meeting, but his first remarks to the group since the tragic Parkland, Florida, high school shooting that left 17 dead and sparked a national student-led push for gun law reform.

“The world is watching and we’re going to come up with a solution,” Trump assured a group of people affected by the nation’s deadliest school shootings during an emotional White House listening session one week after the attack.

Not true. Trump will NOT come up with a solution. He’s lying. Neither will the country loving NRA. They have shown us time after time that they don’t care about the lives lost. Remember when Charleston Heston went to the NRA convention in Denver right after the Columbine shooting? I do. So do the victims and survivors of that shooting. You can see his famous remarks:

Back to the meeting the President had with victims and survivors- He suggested a few good measures that would actually save lives and prevent some of those victims and survivors from having to advocate for preventing devastating shootings. What happened? The NRA came calling. And soon enough, Trump stopped talking about preventing shootings and was back to his bluster and hypocrisy.

#WeCallBS

And does it make any sense at all for the President to carry on at the convention so soon after all of the talk about gun violence in light of so many recent mass shootings? Here are a few of his ludicrous remarks:

Mr. Trump, as he has in the past, made the case for arming teachers, and getting rid of gun-free zones.

He also mourned the Parkland shooting victims.

“Our entire nation was filled with shock and grief by the monstrous attack on a high school in Parkland, Florida,” Mr. Trump said. “We mourn for the victims and their families.”

WHAT? Come on.

Back to the NRA convention, the crowd got a double barreled pleasure since VP Pence also showed up. Have you ever seen Pence with a gun by the way? Does he even hunt? I don’t know if he has much in the line of gun creds but he sure has been cozy with the NRA. 

And neither does Trump. But what they do have is Republican extremism and that’s what the NRA is all about today.

They are not your grandfather’s NRA. They are all about fear and terror:

You don’t have to be a media critic to parse the message: The NRA was casting virtually everyone but gun-owning conservatives as enemies of the state, seemingly encouraging its audience to arm themselves against their fellow Americans. Women’s March Co-President Tamika Mallory, a single black mother from New York, published an open letter on the group’s web site calling on the NRA to take the video down. “The video you sponsored,” she wrote, “suggests armed violence against communities of color, progressives, and anyone who does not agree with this administration’s policies.”

“I’m here to tell you: Not a chance,” replied Grant Stinchfield, Loesch’s angry-white-male counterpart, in an NRA TV video that called Mallory out by name, along with Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson. “We don’t apologize for warning America about chaos creators who want to impose their will upon us through their violence and lies.”

Dana Loesch, NRA TV personality and spokeswoman for fear, will be talking at the NRA convention. She represents the new face of the NRA since it has become an extremist organization. From the linked article:

The NRA of Loesch and Stinchfield would have been utterly unrecognizable to the organization’s membership as recently as 50 years ago. From its founding in 1871 throughout most of the twentieth century, the NRA was largely a firearms-safety and marksmanship-training organization. The NRA kept its members informed about legislation affecting gun owners, but it had no official lobbying arm, and it was a political nonentity. But with the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, everything began to change.

Yes. And everything is beginning to chance the other way, at long last. Activists, including Victims groups will be visible and noisy outside of he NRA convention.

Carry Guard insurance, sold by the NRA, is now in trouble as well:

In a Wednesday announcement, the New York State Department of Financial Services said the NRA’s Carry Guard program “unlawfully provided liability insurance to gun owners for certain acts of intentional wrongdoing,” and that the group solicited coverage to New York residents without a license from the state. Lockton, the world’s largest privately held insurance brokerage, has agreed to pay the state $7 million for the violations, and will terminate Carry Guard policies held by New Yorkers.

Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo described the conduct as “an egregious violation of public policy.” (…)

Following the February mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Chubb disclosed that it had decided not to renew its contract to underwrite the program. Lockton also stated its intention to no longer act as broker and administrator for Carry Guard.

“It’s a major step back,” Peter Kochenburger, the executive director of the Insurance Law Center at the University of Connecticut Law School, told The Trace’s Mike Spies in February. “To keep this going, the NRA will have to find another insurance company to underwrite this. It’s hard to imagine another publicly traded company, or a company like State Farm, stepping in.”

It turns out that companies are not happy with the idea that they may have to pay out if some “good guy” with a gun shoots someone intentionally and gets away with it. I wonder why?

I wonder, by the way, if they will send Ted Nugent out to offend people? At least his images and some products with his name on them will be there.

Oh, and among the items featured on display at the shopping area of the convention is a gun that looks like a cell phone. I’m pretty sure I wrote about this before. But let’s marvel at the total lack of sensibility and common sense involved with this new weapon. What could possibly go wrong?

Does anyone remember the recent shooting of Stephon Clark?

What could possibly go wrong with a gun like this? I can’t even begin to enumerate how wrong this is.

Sigh.

Police officers, ever on the alert when they are in tense situations, have mistaken all kinds of common objects for guns.  It seems ridiculous on its’ face but it’s America where just about anyone can own and carry a gun.

Also featured at the NRA convention is a gun free zone. No good guys with guns to protect the President and Vice President. What are they afraid of?

The Brady Campaign has a great new report out with a timeline about what the NRA has been up to in the past year. The report, titled “Fear and Fanaticism; a year like no other” is spot on. Given the number of horrendous mass shootings in the past year, setting a record of the number of deaths (Las Vegas) the country has had a deadly year. The report includes a list of some of the shootings and the response by the NRA.

mass shooting image Brady

There’s a new atmosphere out there after the Parkland shooting. The majority of Americans have found their voices and they are speaking out. For too long, people resistant to the extremes of the NRA have remained quiet. It’s easier that way because the trolls and critics pounce and it’s not pretty.

Not this time. There are many people like me at the NRA convention this year letting them know how we feel. We aren’t having their nonsensical rhetoric and their myths. And we are getting ready for the fall elections when the issue of gun safety reform will be front and center. Candidates will have to decide on whose side they stand. Preventing shootings and protecting our families from devastation really has no side. It’s a human and moral issue and part of our American values. It’s not about gun sales. It’s not about rights. It’s not about power and control. It’s not about money and influence.

It’s about our lives. That is why students and others came out in very large numbers to March For Our Lives events all over out country. They are not done yet. In fact, they have only begun and many will be voters in the mid-term elections.

It’s Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

#NoRA

UPDATE:

I used the hashtag #NoRA but did not include the article referring to the latest effort against the powerful organization. A group of 100 celebrities and activists have sent a letter to Wayne LaPierre in which they have pledged to a series of actions to reduce the influence of the organization on politicians:

In an open letter to NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, which was first obtained by TIME, the more than 100 members of the newly formed NoRA Initiative — short for No Rifle Association — pledge to reduce the NRA’s influence in American politics through a series of voter registration drives, nationwide art campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts. (…) She says the group has “surprises up our sleeves,” including for events timed to the NRA’s annual convention in Dallas May 3-6. “When like-minded people come together for the common good and for a cause they believe in,” Milano said, “they can move mountains.”

I look forward to the actions and to changing the influence of the corporate gun lobby’s money and influence that has led to inaction to save lives.

 

NRA Convention myths and facts

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Trump NRAStarting tomorrow Atlanta will host the annual NRA Convention. It should be yet another testament to the more and more extreme agenda of the leadership of the NRA. Nationally and in states all over the country, the gun lobby’s leaders and lobbyists have been pushing for ever more dangerous laws to undermine public safety.

Donald Trump will speak at the convention on his 99th day in office. He must believe that the American public will find this to be one of his key accomplishments in his first 100 days. The accomplishment will be for the corporate gun lobby and, if you follow the money,  for gun industry profits.

There is little real support for these bills except for the NRA’s leadership and lapdog politicians. Americans for Responsible Solutions released new polling data that shows that most gun owners and NRA members do not agree with the agenda of the organization:

As the National Rifle Association (NRA) prepares to kick off its annual convention in Atlanta later this week, a new national survey of gun owners finds overwhelming opposition to the dangerous policies and positions supported by the Washington gun lobby. The poll, released today by Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, also finds that a many gun owners believe that the NRA has become increasingly out of touch with them on important gun safety issues and shows that a majority of gun owners believe the NRA has lost its way, straying from its original purpose and mission. (…) The poll illustrates a disconnect between the views of gun owners and the priorities being pushed by the gun lobby. Key federal legislative priorities named by the NRA, including federally mandated concealed carry, deregulating the sale of gun silencers, and eliminating gun-free school zones, receive very low support from gun owners themselves.

There is a disconnect not only between gun owners and the corporate gun lobby but between the general public as well. That is because the NRA and other pro gun organizations are out of touch with the real America. Their agenda is all about power, control and money. In a recent post, I mentioned that the NRA has become now a talking head for the agenda of the political far right:

The right-wing conservatives now ascendant in Washington are not so shy about their ties to the gun group, and the NRA and its allies are championing policies that would formerly be regarded as fringe. At the federal level, the NRA’s top legislative priority is a bill that would require states to honor each other’s laws governing the concealed carrying of handguns. Another gun-rights measure pending in Congress would legalize silencers, and a third would abolish gun-free school zones.

So let’s review, shall we?

The NRA now has a “seat” at the White House like in no prior administration.

The NRA spent $30 million to get Donald Trump elected.

The NRA spent political capital and actual capital to make sure that the open Supreme Court seat went to someone they wanted- Neal Gorsuch.

At least one NRA Board member, Ted Nugent, has dined at the White House with Donald Trump- last week. You can’t state clearly enough how offensive Ted Nugent has become and yet still retains a Board position with the NRA. Why was he dining at the White House along with someone who seems to share his views- ex VP candidate Sarah Palin- the one who shoots bears from a helicopter and loves her guns. Ted Nugent is not what we would call a fine upstanding citizen who should be dining with any President in my opinion.

The NRA’s extreme agenda is now in the “mainstream” of our government and will be apparently pushed by our very own President.

Americans continue to die from gunshot injuries at the alarming rate of 90 per day and around 32,000 a year.

Mass shootings continue on a pace more rapid than in past years.

Veterans are shooting and killing themselves in gun suicides daily but the House and perhaps the Senate will decide that not only is that OK, they will make it more possible.

Alex Jones, right wing conspiracy theorist and who believes the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, is a friend of our President.

Common sense is nowhere to be seen at the federal level concerning a national public health epidemic.

Americans generally do have common sense about gun policy, but as long as the corporate gun lobby has a hold on our political leaders, the public’s wishes will be ignored.

“Corporations are people” but corporations don’t get shot and killed. The gun lobby is a corporation formed by the gun industry and the leaders and lobbyists of the pro gun movement. As long as this is the case, we can expect to see shootings continue unabated.

Here are some facts to lead us into the week-end’s festivities:

While the NRA has been placing friends and allies in the Trump Administration and getting favors in return, it has also been relying on relationships with legislators and even President Trump’s own family to push its legislative goals in Congress. NRA allies in Congress and the White House have already delivered some quiet victories for the gun lobby that will endanger public safety. In February, Congress passed and President Trump signed legislation behind 3 responsiblesolutions.org #ResistTheGunLobby closed doors that eliminated a President Obama-era rule that prevented mentally impaired individuals from accessing firearms.12 The rule had required the inclusion of records into the NICS background check system of recipients of Social Security disability benefits who also required a fiduciary representative to manage their benefits because of a disabling mental disorder.13 And in March, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would make it harder to keep guns out of the hands of veterans with severe mental illnesses by effectively prohibiting the Veterans Administration from sharing those records with NICS while also removing the 174,000 records already included in the system. This will put the veterans who most need our support at increased risk of doing harm to themselves or others. The most recent statistics available from the VA found that an average of 20 veterans per day die from suicide.14 While these are early victories for the NRA, their real agenda is focused on policies that would undermine law enforcement and put public safety at risk, making communities across the country less safe.

And more, from the ARS article, from the mouth of NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre:

In January, before President Trump was even sworn in, LaPierre made the NRA’s new mission clear, warning members that the “forces that conspired to keep Donald Trump out of the White House are coming together to sabotage his administration,” seeking to “inflict their revenge.”46 A month later LaPierre compared antiTrump protestors to “terrorists” and joined Trump’s attacks on “leftist media” and the “fake news.”47 LaPierre and NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox are both slated to speak alongside Trump at the NRA’s annual meeting.48

Revenge. What is that exactly? And what are we talking about here? What I am talking about is public health and safety and protecting lives. The NRA and corporate gun lobby don’t seem to care a whit about that because… rights……money……loyalty…….power……control……..business.

The alternative facts and fantasy of more guns everywhere making American great again continues. Facts don’t matter when it comes to the gun extremists. They want what they want. And what they want is not good for America. A visit to the NRA headquarters is featured in a recent New York Times article takes on the fantasy world of the gun lobby in which we put our heads in the sand and ignore our real problems with guns and gun violence. From the article:

The film star stands tall at the National Rifle Association’s National Firearms Museum — true, only as a cardboard cutout of himself. But the cardboard fantasy of the good guy gunning down the bad guy is what makes the museum work as an enjoyable escape from the life-and-death reality of American gun carnage.

There are thousands of ingenious, gleaming rifles and handguns in displays about America’s gun-rich history of colonialism, immigration, expansionism and vigilante justice. But it is the gallery devoted to Hollywood and its guns and good-guy shooters that best illustrates the power of fantasy now driving the modern gun rights debate.

“Go ahead, make my day,” Clint Eastwood growled famously to a movie bad guy before dispatching him — kaboom! The museum narrative identifies the actual movie guns, not the actors, as having the “starring” roles in assorted western and terrorist-fantasy shootouts. The gallery includes some of the blank rounds actually fired in movies, as opposed to the live rounds bedeviling real life beyond the film screen.

During a visit, the difference between “acting” and “acting out” necessarily comes to mind. Why is there no stream of gripping films about the thousands of troubled Americans with easy access to guns who can lethally act out their darkest grievances on family and society day after day? Shooters nowadays must rise above the B-movie level to get noticed amid the 30,000-plus annual toll of gun death. They need a different twist in motive or a record-high death toll — or maybe the live delivery of death on Facebook, as happened last week — to jolt a jaded public. Inert politicians, of course, remain far more sensitive to the gun lobby than to routine gun mayhem.

(…) The N.R.A.’s latest priority is rooted in its ultimate fantasy that society will be safer if ordinary Americans are allowed to routinely pack a pistol. The organization is pushing Congress to pass a national concealed-carry reciprocity law to make it easier for people with state concealed-gun permits to carry their firearms nationwide. This is part of the campaign to make gun possession ubiquitous among ordinary citizens. All states permit some concealed carry, but under vastly different safety controls. That is why opponents wisely fear that national reciprocity is a ploy to sell more guns and undermine stronger local and state gun controls.

Fantasyland for sure. Evidence and real shootings every day lend the lie to the fantasy about more guns making us safer. Survivors and family members have found out that what they see on TV or in the movies is fantasy. What happens in real life is no fantasy.

The fantasy is that the NRA leaders and lobbyists live in fantasyland as they promote their agenda. One has to wonder when this fantasy bubble will burst. In the ARS polling ( from article above) an interesting question was asked and here is the answer:

  • The NRA is out of touch with gun owners on gun safety issues. 67 percent of the gun owners feel that the NRA used to be an organization dedicated to gun safety, but it’s been overtaken by lobbyists and the interests of gun manufacturers and lost its original purpose and mission. Less than 50 percent of gun owners feel that the organization represents their interests.

It’s past time for a change. As the myths and fantasies of the NRA continue to be perpetuated by those at the top, including now our President, people are dying. It doesn’t have to be this way.

 

UPDATE:

This Media Matters article sets the record straight about the myth that the NRA is a Civil Rights organization as often touted by their leaders:

Despite targeting a civil rights hero, the NRA has routinely attempted to co-opt the civil rights movement by, among other things, calling gun regulations “equally as unconstitutional” as Jim Crow laws and bemoaning that “too many Americans don’t think of the Second Amendment as a civil rights issue.” In August 2015, NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action media liaison Lars Dalseide compared a Seattle ordinance that would fund gun violence research by imposing a tax on the sale of guns and ammunition to Jim Crow-era poll taxes.

In March 2014, NRA board member Ted Nugent wrote in a column for conspiracy website WorldNetDaily that gun owners “must learn from Rosa Parks and definitely refuse to give up our guns,” in response to a law that banned assault weapons following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Nugent went on to call Rosa Parks his “hero” and has previously called himself “Rosa Parks with a Gibson.”

The NRA can in no way be compared to our nation’s real Civil Rights organizations and actions taken to push for those rights. The organization was founded on the idea that it would support hunters and hunter and gun safety. The fact that the leaders and lobbyists use their efforts to increase profits of the gun industry and their control over elected officials by couching it in civil rights language is dangerous and fantasy. I am betting that even many who pay their dues to the organization have no idea that the leaders make this claim.

Nugent is no Rosa Parks.

Wayne LaPierre is no John Lewis.

False facts are not facts.

Myths are fantastical thinking.

The definition of fantasy:

  1. obsolete :  hallucination

  2. 2:  fancy; especially :  the free play of creative imagination

  3. 3:  a creation of the imaginative faculty whether expressed or merely conceived: such asa :  a fanciful design or invention a fantasy of delicate traceryb :  a chimerical or fantastic notion His plans are pure fantasy.c :  fantasia 1 the organ fantasy of Johannes Brahmsd :  imaginative fiction featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters spent the summer reading fantasy —called also fantasy fiction

  4. 4:  caprice served to fulfill the king’s fantasies

  5. 5:  the power or process of creating especially unrealistic or improbable mental images in response to psychological need an object of fantasy; also :  a mental image or a series of mental images (such as a daydream) so created sexual fantasies

  6. 6often attributive :  a coin usually not intended for circulation as currency and often issued by a dubious authority (such as a government-in-exile)

 

 

 

#NRAAM NRA Convention, 2016 version

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liarIf it’s May, it must be NRA convention time. The lies have just begun.So far, it has proven to be the usual with the exception of a certain Presidential candidate who showed up and spoke from notes he doesn’t usually use. From this article:

 

Trump also made it clear he wanted to woo the pro-gun crowd — but he seemed bored by his prepared remarks during his speech, joking about teleprompters before veering off onto other topics throughout the speech and even belittling his own remarks.

What did he say? More lies. But the crowd loved the lies and were excited to applaud a man whose transformation from a real estate guy who used to be in favor of common sense when it came to gun violence to a full-on card carrying NRA gun guy. He was, of course, endorsed by the NRA.

Whatever.

The lies? Let’s take them one at a time:

Donald Trump will make gun free zones guns allowed zones immediately upon taking the oath of office. Will that include his own properties? Will that include the annual NRA convention where guns are not allowed? It will, apparently include schools where it’s always a good idea for gun toters and teachers to be armed.

If this was such a good idea, why in the world are we the most dangerous country in the world when it comes to gun violence? Is this the great America Trump wants for us? How about this? Let’s make America safe again, a new slogan from Moms Demand Action. While the NRA is talking about more guns everywhere, a group of gun violence prevention activists will hold a screening of Katie Couric’s film, Under the Gun. featuring victims of gun violence telling their poignant stories.

We have more guns per person ( though many of those guns are owned by fewer people) already than any other country in the civilized and democratized world. And this kind of illogic fails to speak the truth. Most gun deaths are in guns allowed zones already. Take domestic shootings, many of which occur inside of homes. Or gun suicides, which often occur in a home where a gun is not only allowed but easily accessible to use in a suicide. Homes are not gun free zones since anyone can have a gun inside of their own home. I know that from personal experience.

Or gun ranges where people are killing themselves with increasing frequency?

Or how about hospitals, which are mostly gun free, where people like this lady who carried a gun in spite of the gun free zone, “accidentally” discharged her weapon injuring an innocent person.

Or what about cars? Are they gun free? Nope. Remember this one and this one where a toddler got their hands on a gun and shot their own parent? Or the guy who “accidentally” discharged his gun while sitting in his car waiting for his wife. Or the woman who was adjusting her bra gun holster and shot and killed herself?  Gun free zone? You decide.

Or how about taking selfies with your phone? Presumably the place where this happened was not a gun free zone.

Bars and restaurants in many states allow concealed guns inside. It hasn’t worked out particularly well as in this case, or this one. Or this one where a man forgot he had his gun when it fell from his jacket pocket in a restaurant ( presumably not a gun free zone) badly injuring one of the customers whose injuries will be life long. Or this Kansas man ( “law abiding gun owner) whose gun went off in a restaurant injuring his own wife. There are pages and pages of incidents like these if you look on the internet. Most of them occur in guns allowed zones. But if they occur in “gun free zones” who can one defend oneself from a stupid and dangerous gun carrier who believes he/she has a right to carry a loaded gun in public and then makes a terrible and sometimes deadly mistake. There’s no accounting for stupidity. But stupidity with a loaded gun is very serious stuff.

#Enough

Let’s move on to some more lies. Trump is making claims that Hillary Clinton wants to confiscate all guns and take away American’s right to own guns. Silly Donald. He knows better. But pandering to the minority of gun owners who are extreme in their positions is his ticket, he believes, to winning the election. Most NRA members don’t believe this and actually support requiring background checks on all gun sales. Shhhh. Don’t tell the Donald this. It doesn’t fit with his new-found support of gun rights.

Oh, and then there’s the lie about Hillary Clinton wanting violent criminals to go free. Just because he says so does not make it true. But never mind. Trying to make women fear crime in order to drive them to gun stores to buy a gun or to the polling booths is cynical at best and doesn’t deal with the truth that women are more at risk when there are guns in the home. But here is what Donald said anyway to get votes from women:

“In trying to overturn the Second Amendment, Hillary Clinton is telling everyone — and every woman living in a dangerous community — that she doesn’t have the right to defend herself,” Mr. Trump said. “So you have a woman living in a community, a rough community, a bad community — sorry, you can’t defend yourself.”

Trump has had a lot of trouble with his support from women because of his many comments and insults since his entry into the Presidential race.

It’s also the usual suspects who come calling at this display of gun extremism. Of course, it wouldn’t be an NRA convention without good old Wayne LaPierre whose annual speeches to convention goers never fail to drum up fear and paranoia. And then the list of politicians who have to pay homage to this group of gun extremists shows how our leaders are so afraid to admit that the second amendment actually can co-exist with gun rights as it has for many years now.

Sigh.

And what about those NRA leaders and Board members? Here’s a nice list so you can see who they are and who they represent. Ted Nugent, of course, is one of the loud mouth NRA Board members who offends people and issues racial and sexist slurs on a regular basis. And in late breaking news, Nugent was re-elected to the NRA Board with the 2nd highest vote total. That tells us everything we need to know about the participants at the convention and their willingness to support hate, racism and crudity.

And of course, if we follow the money to find out how the NRA is actually funded we don’t have to look much further than executives of Sturm-Ruger who presented the NRA-ILA with a nice 4 million dollar check. 

The displays are the usual- guns and more guns. And don’t forget those ugly displays of bleeding look-alike gun targets (women, Barack Obama, etc) , hyped up slogans and swag with anti-Obama sayings and more ludicrous lies about those who support the idea that 30,000 American gun deaths are too many.

In Louisville, Kentucky, the site of the annual convention this year, it’s been a bad year for gun deaths:

“We are having an epidemic,” says Michelle Unseld Thomas, a resident of the South Side.

The violence in Louisville right now is “unprecedented,” says Brown, the police major.

But never mind. The NRA doesn’t get involved in trying to prevent this upward trend of people shooting other people. One has to wonder if their insular world includes anyone who has become a victim of a gun death by suicide, homicide, or an “accidental” shooting. Likely not.

And the shootings continue unabated. Children are shooting themselves or each other daily. Domestic shootings are taking the lives of innocent women and children. Suicides account for the majority of gun deaths. Young men in communities of color are the victims of way too many shootings thanks to easy access to guns and mass shootings happen in America like in no other country in the world.

One of the biggest lies is that guns don’t affect suicide rates and that suicides should not be considered to be gun violence. That is false. Studies confirm that access to guns makes suicide easier and, of course, deadlier. A new study from the Journal of Public Health confirms this. If only the NRA could admit that guns contribute to the majority of gun deaths in America and believe in research and studies that deal with public health and safety. But denial and outright deception by the corporate gun lobby has kept the government from studying important issues like this. Follow the money for the reasons.

But never mind the truth. This convention is all about convincing those in attendance and those who get the NRA’s mailings and emails that America will only be safer if more people own guns to protect themselves from the government and all of those evil shadows lurking around every corner in every nook and cranny. Never mind that those guns are much more likely to be used against you or someone around you than in self defense.

And those militia groups and people who actually do believe the government is coming for your guns? I feel sorry for their fear. It must be difficult to live in a world where that kind of fear prompts people to have their own arsenals. It’s  a burden to have to live this way. Plus, it sometimes leads to home grown terrorism as in this deadly incident in Nevada.

Are we safer because of the hyped fear and paranoia spewed by gun rights extremists and those who speak at NRA conventions?

A recent study of angry behavior which received responses from gun owners and non gun owners revealed what we all most likely believe to be the truth. There are a lot of angry (mostly men) with guns carried for “self defense” who just may use them for something else. From the article by “Mike the Gun Guy”:

Where the number of guns owned by individuals seemed to be a real risk issue can be found in the correlation between number of guns owned, engaging in any of the three anger indicators and carrying a gun outside the home. The good news in this survey was that less than 5 percent of the respondents reported that they walked around with a gun. The not-so-good news is that folks who owned six or more guns and carried a concealed weapon reported that they engaged in at least one of the three impulsive behaviors four times more frequently than persons who owned five or fewer guns.

This study and others about anger and guns lends the lie to the idea that guns will make us safer. Way too often angry people with guns shoot others in an instant because they can. And that is the real America.

We can’t afford to lie about gun violence. And we sure as heck cannot afford to have one of our major political party candidates for President of the United States lying about something this serious.It is a national public health and safety epidemic that is largely going untreated because of the lies. Are we on the side of a safer America or one that allows lies and deceptions to determine policies and treatment that can save lives? This election will determine on whose side we are.

 

 

 

 

It’s no accident that the NRA ignores “accidental” shootings

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accidentAs a recent article in the Washington Post noted, the NRA has a real problem with their messaging when it comes to the epidemic of child shootings:

As the National Rifle Association’s annual conference hits Nashville this weekend with 70,000 expected attendees, the organization has good reason to be upbeat. For another year, it has succeeded in stalling legislative attempts at moderate gun controls, rolling back existing state regulations and winning media battles. But there’s a looming question that should be seriously concerning the NRA and its supporters: how to reconcile the organization’s agenda with new evidence on the prevalence of gun accidents involving children.

Over the past year, new studies and media reports have documented America’s extraordinary number of child-involved shootings. These occur when a child happens upon a gun, or is left alone with one, and ends up shooting themselves or another person. Such disasters result in hundreds of child fatalities and have made American children nine times more likely to die in gun accidents than children anywhere else in the developed world. These deaths pose a massive challenge for the NRA. They demonstrate fairly conclusively that guns cannot be both safe and ubiquitous; the inevitable consequence of widespread gun ownership is a never-ending series of tragedies involving children. But, desperate to insist there’s nothing wrong, the NRA has proved itself totally incapable of responding to the problem.

It’s not just that the NRA is incapable or in denial. It’s purposeful that the corporate gun lobby ignores the easy access to guns by children. They don’t seem to care and claim that just telling kids not to touch a gun will do the trick. Well, it doesn’t. That has been shown over and over in videos and studies. From this linked article:

Despite harrowing tragedies like Caroline’s death, the National Rifle Association iscommitted to expanding firearm ownership among children. The NRA’s recent convention in Indianapolis included a “Youth Day” to promote firearms for children, an event from which the media was banned. For years, gun manufacturers and the NRA have marketed firearms to children ages 5 to 12, insisting that programs such as the Eddie Eagle Safety Program ensure the safety of children. If they truly believe this, they are mistaken.

The overwhelming empirical evidence indicates that the presence of a gun makes children less safe; that programs such as Eddie Eagle are insufficient; and that measures the NRA and extreme gun advocates vehemently oppose, such as gun safes and smart guns, could dramatically reduce the death toll. Study after study unequivocally demonstrates that the prevalence of firearms directly increases the risk of youth homicide, suicide, and unintentional death. This effect is consistent across the United States and throughout the world. As a country, we should be judged by how well we protect our children. By any measure, we are failing horribly.

And when a 2 or 3 year old finds a gun, the idea that they could understand not to touch a gun is ludicrous. It’s no accident that the NRA ignores this. For when profits come before common sense and saving lives, the result is a nation of children shooting themselves, or another child who is often a sibling. Occasionally a bullet discharged accidentally by a gun held by a child hits a parent as well here and here. (These are just 2 of other examples)

Sure, the NRA has some good programs to train kids to use a gun for hunting but they claim that their Eddie Eagle program will do the trick to keep kids from accessing guns in the home. There is no proof of this. Young kids and guns just don’t go together. And, as the above article suggests, putting the burden of gun safety on the children themselves rather than the adults in charge is a bad idea.

Remember the young girl who was brought by her parents to a gun range to try out a machine gun? It ended with the death of the instructor. What an awful burden for that 9 year old to carry through the rest of her life. What were the adults thinking? When we have a corporate gun lobby that is more interested in making sure the next generation will be encouraged to buy guns than in the safety of that generation, that is what we get. This is just not happening in other civilized, democratized countries.

As a nation, do we have to be hit in the head before we decide to do something about our national epidemic of gun violence? What will it take before the gun lobby joins with the rest of us in truly trying to prevent at least some of the avoidable and preventable shootings of and by children? Guns are dangerous weapons designed to kill people. They are not toys or just an average consumer product. One of the things we recognize in this country is that safety and health measures need to be in place to protect our children from harm. If this means that more people come to understand the risks of having guns in their homes, we may actually manage to save some lives.

But the NRA and others in the corporate gun lobby ignore those risks because their messaging is all about the fear and paranoia of not having a gun in the home or strapped to your waist at all times. Young families with children are led to believe that without a gun in the home, they won’t be safe from whatever the heck people are afraid of. Burglaries? Most occur when home owners are not at home. Gangs?Zombies? The government? A crazy relative? Actual home invasions are frightening for sure and there are people who have stopped them with a gun. These incidents are more rare than children with access to loaded guns shooting themselves or others.

You may remember that I commented in my last post that not one of my readers made a comment about all of the accidental discharges of guns by law abiding gun owners or the access to a gun provided by a parent or family member, presumably a law abiding gun owner. That’s because those in the gun rights crowd want their loaded guns at the ready at all times and if locked up securely where kids and burglars can’t get them, they may not be available at that instant when someone comes to take away your guns or tries to break into your home. Which is the greater risk?

And further problems for the NRA, though they don’t see it that way, is that the term corporate gun lobby is employed by those of us in the gun violence prevention community for a very good reason. Check out the huge check for $600,000 donated by Smith and Wesson to the NRA for employee benefits. Follow the money.

Other things to watch for this week-end:

“Well, if I were in charge,” she continued, as the audience erupted in applause at the prospect, “they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

She criticized the administration for pursuing a national security strategy that, in her estimation, pokes “our allies in the eye, calling them adversaries, instead of putting the fear of God in our enemies.”

Palin also rallied the pro-gun audience to continue protecting their right to bear arms, saying their efforts are “needed now more than ever because every day, we are seeing more and more efforts to strip away our Second Amendment rights.”

Good grief.

Every year the NRA convention highlights the total lack of common sense when it comes to gun policy and our American gun culture. I’m sure this year will not disappoint.