GUNS: Fear and the NRA

NRA guru Wayne Lapierre once gave a most eloquent speech (lol), and stated, “The best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!” Well, I’ve been pondering that statement, after the very local tragedy of the 2-year-old and the gun. Some years ago, a similar thing happened at a local market, where a child pulled a loaded gun from under his grandfather’s pillow and a fatality resulted. There was no “bad guy” in these tragedies, but something that should be thought about, from the standpoint of what the NRA once advocated — gun safety rather than gun rights.

There is a limit to what “good guys” can do to defend against “bad guys.” The 30+ round assault rifle, as well as surprise, negates any defense there is by a “good guy with a gun.” If a good guy with a gun were a defense, then there would never be a policeman killed in or out of the line of duty!

The first two safety lessons I got, which were NRA supported ones, were: Never put a cartridge in the barrel until you’re ready to shoot. Never carry a gun in the vehicle with a shell in the chamber. Washington even has a law against a gun with cartridges in the chamber in a vehicle.

It seems that would also be a safety precaution for a purse, a pillow, an unlocked cupboard, or any place outside a locked gun safe.

Never put a cartridge in the chamber until you’re ready to shoot. My own personal safety rule: Never put total faith in a safety mechanism.

Now, the NRA, which used to be highly regarded for its gun-safety mission, seems to encourage every citizen to acquire a concealed weapon permit, and every citizen to buy all the weapons he can afford, not just sporting weapons, or hunting weapons, but…assault weapons, which at one time were designed for military use. I shudder when gun stores intimate that I buy my 10-year-old grandson his first .22 patterned after an AK-47 assault rifle.

Fear! Gun manufacture companies love it. Foster it. The gun lobby, through fear of gun “control,” has eliminated the possibility for any regulations that might lessen the devastation by disturbed gun “nuts.” The numbers killed by sporting guns would be so much fewer than by assault rifles or handguns.

RON BOOTHE

Kingston