NRA: Return to roots

Ms. Charbonneau’s “My Turn” column describing the MOMS organization, Mr. Edelbrock’s rebuke and topped off with yet another school shooting highlight the difficulty of reasoned discourse around guns. I struggle to put down in words my feelings and thoughts around this politicized debate of sane, responsible gun ownership, public safety and constitutional rights. I believe that the majority of gun owners, Second Amendment advocates and NRA members are struggling just like all of us coming to grips with senseless gun violence, access to assault-style weapons and controlling the spread of guns into the hands of those who choose not to or simply cannot refrain from mass shootings.

Before I was old enough to hunt, I used to go with my dad and his friends to hunt pheasants. Crowded pickup truck cabs, hunting dogs. The smell of newly oiled shotguns, bologna sandwiches washed down with a warm Shasta. I looked forward to my NRA Hunter Safety Course.

In those days, NRA was all about hunting, firearm safety, teaching the proper values and culture of gun ownership — dare I say apolitical? The leadership was not advancing a polarizing agenda which has seemed to morph into tirades against those “liberals” whose sole purpose is to confiscate all weapons from everyone in this country, so that somehow they can exert further mind control to lead us into socialism — as asserted in recent mailings I have received from Mr. LaPierre, the NRA executive director.

I cast no dispersions on folks who choose to belong to the NRA. I do not fear our country turning its back on the Second Amendment. I do want common sense approaches that will reduce the access to and misuse of firearms by those most of us would agree shouldn’t have them until they are capable in every sense of the word.

RICK PALAGI

Hayden