THE NRA'S BIG LIE ABOUT GUNS

There is a saying that if you tell a lie long enough it becomes the truth.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) repeatedly promotes one of the biggest lies ever to be perpetrated on the American public: They are coming to get your guns.”

The big problem is who are “they?”

If you ask those who are repeating this Gregorian nonsense-chant, you get either a blank stare or simply “the government.” As I write, the “they” almost always refers to the government as a whole or some unnamed shadowy part of the federal government.

Ok, “the government.” But this is a huge country. It would take the whole government to carry out such a plan.

There are approximately 2.7 million federal workers. Are you telling me when Americans take a job in the “government” they automatically become hell-bent on attacking The Second Amendment? Really? A large number of “government” employees I worked with and have met outside my work, are hunters and many collect guns. Is the NRA telling me these people, and others, are going to leave their jobs and go door to door searching for guns to confiscate? Really? If they all did get up from their desks, do you have any idea how long it would take 2.7 million people to search the homes of 330 million Americans? Who will be left to provide the federal services we all rely on? 

If by some incredibly remote chance these paranoid gun-toting U.S. citizens are right, it would mean no one would be left to send you your social security check much less run the Defense Department or any other federal agency. This country will be vulnerable to a foreign take-over.  If the chanting automatons are right, we all may be learning to speak Chinese soon.

I don’t think those who fall prey to the “they’re coming to take your guns” chant look at the illogic of what they are saying, nor do they recognize they are being duped. Remember, “Thinking is hard work, that’s why so few people do.”

THE FACTS

Here are the facts as they relate to gun violence in the United States:

1.     Greed as well as personal and career interests have turned our House and Senate into malfunctioning elected bodies. Our legislators are all too easy prey for lobbyists and interests groups with plenty of cash and perks to buy the politicians. Given this state of affairs, it is next to impossible to get federal level elected officials to turn their attention to finding ways to curb gun violence.

2.     Every day 90 Americans are killed by guns, according the Brady Campaign. If that figure is not bad enough, it is also true that every day nine children are killed or wounded by guns. But not even these frightening figures are strong enough to spur Congress to look at ways to curb gun violence.

3.     The only piece of legislation in 2014 dealing with gun safety and passed by both the House and the Senate was a comprehensive and bipartisan background check bill in April of that year.

Nationwide, gun homicides have declined in recent years, but cities’ gun deaths rates have remained significantly higher than the rest of the country. Furthermore, the number of mass shootings, particularly school shootings, has increased at an alarming rate.

 According to the Brady Campaign:

·      One in three Americans knows someone who has been shot.

·      On average, 31 Americans are murdered with guns every day and 151 are treated for a gun assault in an emergency room.

·      Every day on average, 55 people kill themselves with a firearm, and 46 people are shot or killed by accident with a gun.

There is some hope to prevent the carnage. Positive steps to curb the gun violence have been adopted by many states and communities. (To be continued)