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The NRA and the Brady Campaign |
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Gregory Morris, 9/5/07 7:23:04 pm |
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Yesterday's article from the Christian Science Monitor discusses the battle between the NRA and the Brady Campaign. In all, I didn't mind the article all that much, although it was clearly missing some important points. Basically, it was saying that the NRA goes too crazy in one direction while the BC goes off the deep end the other way, and because of this, there can be no "middle ground". The point they are missing is, that "middle ground" is still a loss of constitutional rights for Americans.
My favorite quote of course is: "The Brady Campaign – understaffed, underfunded, and generally floundering..."
Now, this statement was intended to prove that the NRA is making a bigger deal out of the lackluster performance of these anti-gun groups than they ought to. The thing is, this is a political game. The author of this article is missing the fact that all politics must be played this way. The NRA screams bloody murder about some terrible law or other, then gives in on some points to make a compromise. People don't see that because of the loud fuss they make whenever Paul Helmke tries to get a new gun law pushed through Congress.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that every move the BC makes to pass a law further erodes our rights. The NRA is simply trying to keep them right where they are, or at least where they should be. They signed off on instant background checks. They signed off on a ban on "armor piercing" handgun rounds. The former making everyone's lives easier, the latter being a pointless feel-good law.
The article still makes some of the typical media
mistakes... such as ownership of machine guns, which is incredibly rare, and not at all related to crime. They also think that a .50 cal gun has to be used with a tripod (actually, its a bipod, and it still has nothing to do with crime.) They make the mistake of ignoring that a .50 cal ban will just lead to the popularity of .499 cal rifles.
All the screaming the NRA does has a purpose. Nobody believes the UN is going to take away our guns, but... if we become complacent, who knows? We have to do a little bit of screaming in order to make sure that we aren't screwed later on down the road. Let people interpret that how they want.
This author also tries to paint anti-gunners' "reasonable laws" as actually reasonable, when in fact they won't do a damn thing to stop crime. They make people feel good, but I think most "reasonable" people would agree that actually stopping crime is a much more noble goal. She also doesn't realize that some, not all but some, of these anti-gun-rights groups actually have stated that they want to ban all civilian ownership of guns.
I've said before that I would grudgingly agree to more gun control (mandatory proficiency tests, one gun a month, whatever) if and only if there was a way to guarantee that it wasn't a slippery slope. I don't think all gun laws necessarily lead to more gun laws, but historically they have. The thing is, there is no way to guarantee that. The constitution is supposed to guarantee that this right shall not be infringed but politicians and anti-gun groups largely ignore the constitution. |
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| | [Comments are closed after a month.] |
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