Giving the Gift of Self-Deception

People don’t make people safer; guns make people safer.

That is essentially the message from NRA propagandist Wayne LaPierre, whose uncontrolled spittle on the right side of his mouth on Meet the Press Sunday was more telling than the words he spoke…and whose uncontrolled spitfire at a press announcement two days earlier said far more about the man’s state of mind than the matters he preached about.

LaPierre and his organization are unmistakably anxious (the spittle) and angry (the spitfire). They are anxious because, in the wake of Sandy Hook, they have no decent argument for allowing killing machines to be sold like skim milk, only with fewer regulations. They are angry for the same reason: the truth is now far more powerful than their fictions.

Lies generally never hold up that well to close scrutiny. Neither do dumb ideas.

As millions celebrate the holiday season, let’s touch on just one joyless stroke of NRA stupidity. LaPierre and his compadres say they believe armed guards in schools will make kids safer. Well, if that is so, then logic immediately demands that the circle of armed protection must be much larger.

The NRA and its diehard proponents believe schoolchildren are sitting ducks for mass murderers – unless there is one person present leaning against a wall eight hours a day with a pistol. Okay then, what about every youth sporting event?

It is incredibly easy to walk up to a youth soccer game, football, basketball, tee ball, cheerleading expo, Boy and Girl Scout camping trip or jamboree…than it is to get into a school. So, according to the thinking of LaPierre, we’ll be better off with armed guards at all those places, too…or parents packing, concealed or unconcealed. Protectors all.

That one person – maybe two, will surely be able to stop a deranged-in-some-way, bloodthirsty young male in the future, possibly holding what Bushmaster’s website proudly calls an Adaptive Combat Rifle (ACR), along with extra clips and other weapons. On a suicide mission, don’t forget that. Maybe that person could be stopped, if the armed guard or parent was a Navy Seal or some other special ops member. But most of them are busy right now.

Why do you think they make these things anyway? These assault weapons. To kill, dang it all. They make them TO KILL. To be better armed. To have more firepower. To blow away any opposition who may be less empowered. To make men feel strong. All that.

Yet, LaPierre and friends (which include a couple thousand elected officials in Washington and around the country) see no reason any changes in gun regulation should include, say, a limit on how many bullets can be in a clip.

As I think about it, children’s recitals, plays, readings for kids at local bookstores, outdoor movie showings, Easter Egg hunts, too, would need armed guards to make them safe for our children.

I suppose that would also include every yellow school bus. It’s a certainty there will be a bunch of kids on those ubiquitous buses as they roll down highways and through neighborhoods across America.

Arm them all up, Wayne’s point seems to suggest. Sounds like a spectacular idea.

So, if I get this right, the NRA wants more governments to hire more people with more and better guns – to protect some gatherings of innocent children – yet the reason the NRA wants individuals to be able to own assault rifles is…because it’s in the Constitution. It’s a way to allow everyday people rise up against the government in a rebellion – or its agents with guns who storm your house. Come on, this doesn’t even make sense now. Do you all want a more potent government or a less potent one?

I actually support the general right of citizens to bear arms, but it isn’t because I believe citizens today can band together to overthrow our government if it goes bad on us – you know, our national government with arsenals of nuclear weapons, drones, every missile and flying killing machine you can imagine, never-ending surveillance…and so on.

I don’t think assault rifles with 30 clips are going to give us the edge against a government that becomes bent on beating down its own people. It won’t be a gun battle.

Furthermore, by LaPierre’s thinking every adult should be able to possess a personal nuclear weapon, too – am I right? It’s sort of in the Second Amendment, isn’t it?

The issue here is the easy access to guns that can easily kill scores of people in a few minutes, including the armed guard (in a few seconds). That’s the debate.

On Meet the Press Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said, with some drama, “Well, I own a AR-15. I’ve got it at my house.” You could hear a bullet casing drop. Um, congratulations, Senator.

Host David Gregory never asked Graham “why?”  I can’t remember hearing about a homeowner who protected him or herself, or the family, by showing or firing a maxed out assault rifle as a burglar or potential rapist was breaking in. I’m sure it has happened, but when was that and where? How many times are we talking about? I hear a lot more about alarm systems, alert neighbors and barking dogs saving lives.

LaPierre’s armed guards in elementary schools was a stunt, pure and simple. No wonder he seemed so damned uncomfortable – with his his spittle and his spitfire – before the press Friday and on Meet the Press Sunday. He was out there making things up.

The NRA knows it has met its match…in the new, small burial plots of Newtown.

Oh, one more thing: as I write this, Bushmaster has a slogan up on its site for its new, so-called adaptive combat rifles. “Justice For All.”

Tom Gasparoli

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Tom Gasparoli, writing under the pen name J.P. Kennedy, has a suspense novel on Amazon called Manacle Lake.