Tag: NRA

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Politics

The Way They Were

They were newlyweds, having just marked their first wedding anniversary. They had an almost six-year-old daughter, a one-year-old daughter, and a two-month-old son; they were just 23 and 24 years old. They dropped off their daughter at cheerleading practice, then headed to Walmart for back-to-school necessities and for party supplies because they had invited their family and friends to help them celebrate their daughter’s birthday and to show off the new house of which they were so proud. His life had turned around when he met her, and they were on course for a happier future. The celebration never happened. Both were shot in the El Paso Walmart, she shielding their baby. The headline read “The baby still had her blood on him.”

He was known as a family man, a grandfather who went to the El Paso Walmart on Saturday morning to take food and water to his granddaughter and her classmates who were there raising money for their soccer team. As soon as the gunfire broke out, he moved to shield his granddaughter. His sister described him in a Facebook post as “a beautiful human being, an excellent dad, uncle, husband and brother.” A cousin said, “He always dedicated himself to his family and his work.” He lived 61 years only to die at the hands of a person who should never have been allowed to own a gun.

He was only six years old, attending a popular Northern California food festival with his mother and his maternal grandmother. The mother received two bullet wounds but survived, as did her mother, the boy’s grandmother. The little one was not so fortunate. His father arrived at the hospital to be told that his son was in critical condition and then five minutes later was notified his son had died. He was just six and a “happy kid,” according to his paternal grandmother who agonizes over the tragic unfairness of a senseless death at such an innocent age.

She was thirteen and also attending the garlic festival. She didn’t keep pace with her family as they fled; she stayed back to walk beside a relative who uses a cane. She died from the bullet that may otherwise have struck the relative.

He was not so innocent. A gang member with a long rap sheet of his own for weapons violations, he was on the scene of a Brooklyn block party when an unknown gunman opened fire. He died and eleven others were injured.

He had worked at a Southaven, Mississippi, Walmart store for about 16 years and had recently become a department manager. He was raising three children before being shot dead in the store’s parking lot. The store manager, father of two, was also killed inside the building. The gunman was a recently fired store employee who left five children fatherless.

According to the New York Times, they were “two were friends from work, enjoying a night on the town. One had recently given birth and was finally getting out of the house. Another had just gotten a new job at a place he loved.” The bar, in Dayton, Ohio, just 20 miles from my hometown–Troy, Ohio–was the scene of much celebration on that carefree Saturday night; that is, until a gunman opened fire and left 9 dead and 27 injured in a matter of seconds. His weapon of choice was a military-style rifle and a large-capacity magazine, thanks to which a total of eight children are grieving the loss of a parent.

Between July 28 and August 4, 2019, 37 people died in the United States of America. The cause? An epidemic outbreak of deadly disease? Tragic unavoidable accidents? A natural disaster, placing them at the mercy of the elements? None of the above. Within that 8-day period, those people died from senseless gun violence. These 37 deaths bring the total for 2019 to 255–which is an average of more than one person per day (CBS News). In addition to the death toll, another 79 people were shot in those same incidents, raising the total number of casualties in just 8 days to 116.

As staggering as those numbers are, they don’t include the number of devastated, grieving family members whose lives have forever changed at the whim of a madman given permission by an irresponsible Congress to own and operate weapons of mass destruction. They also don’t account for the average citizens who are terrified when they hear a car backfire or a large object hit the ground, because we all have lost something in this senseless episode of American history: we’ve lost our sense of safety, trust, and security. We keep tight leashes on our children who will never know the same freedoms we enjoyed in our youth; we’re nervous about normal activities like going shopping, watching a movie in the theater, or even attending our houses of worship. We’re constantly watching our backs because we live in a country where some antiquated amendment is more important than our children and our own peace of mind.

A few days ago, during a visit to New Orleans, I needed Benadryl to counteract an allergic reaction. The package, at Walgreens, was encased in a plastic lock box which could be opened only by a store employee. The security check to board the airplanes which took me to and from New Orleans required me to remove my shoes and in one case to have a minor “pat down” on my back because the metal detector had sensed something.

For years, following the deaths of seven people caused by poisoned Tylenol and the discovery that certain ingredients in over-the-counter cold and allergy medications are used to make methamphetamine (meth), the government has placed restrictions on the amount of a product that can be sold to one customer and have kept the products either in locked cases or in a secure area from which they are retrieved only after a customer has requested them.

I and all of my fellow air travelers now remove our shoes to go through security because in 2001, one terrorist, since known as the Shoe Bomber, attempted to detonate an explosive packed in his shoes during a transatlantic flight. He didn’t even succeed, yet that one botched attempt has affected security measures for air travel these 18 years and counting.

Babies rode in the front seat beside their parents until airbags were added to cars for adults’ protection. Now, because of the danger airbags pose to small people, children are required to ride in the rear seat until they reach the age determined by state laws, in many cases age 13.

In 1995, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols used an ammonium nitrate fertilizer as part of the bomb with which they killed 168 people in Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. According to various websites, restrictions on the sale of that type of fertilizer now include the following: “Anyone buying more than 25 pounds [must] register, be screened against a known terrorist list, and require any thefts to be reported within 24 hours.”

In other locations,

“Under the rules, retailers would have to obtain the name, address, telephone number and driver’s license number of people wanting to purchase ammonium nitrate fertilizer and maintain records, including the date of the sale and the amount purchased, for at least two years.

The administrative guidelines would authorize retailers to refuse to sell ammonium nitrate when it was being purchased out of season, in unusual quantities or in other suspicious circumstances.

The proposal, similar to rules in place in South Carolina and Nevada, is designed to make ammonium nitrate more secure and keep it out of the hands of terrorists, said Kenny Naylor, Fertilizer Program Administrator with the Oklahoma Dept. of Ag, Food & Forestry.”

One fertilizer bombing and people have to be registered, provide contact information, and limit their purchases to restricted amounts. Thirty-seven people killed by gunshot in eight days and nothing is done. Nothing. No. Thing.

Time Magazine recently cited a database of mass shootings compiled by Mother Jones, including the numbers of fatalities and injuries up to and including the recent El Paso and Dayton shootings. During the last 37 years, from 1982 to August, 2019, 114 mass shootings have occurred in the United States (mass shooting is defined as an incident in which at least three people are killed, not including the gunman). In those 114 shootings, 932 have been killed and another 1406 wounded. Most were innocently going about their routine lives: attending school, shopping, enjoying a little entertainment, worshiping. Some had lived long lives, others had barely had a chance to live.

If one botched shoe bombing forever changed air-travel security measures, one fertilizer bombing forever restricted fertilizer sales, and one batch of cyanide-laced Tylenol forever changed the way we purchase over-the-counter drugs, why have we had 114 shootings in 37 years? Why didn’t the first shooting motivate changes that would have prevented many of the others from ever happening? Why have we as a nation sacrificed 932 lives, along with our own sense of security, on the altar of the Second Amendment? Why is unrestricted gun ownership more important to millions of our fellow citizens than people’s lives? Why are universal background checks a greater threat than the possibility of getting killed in the mall, at the theater, at a friendly bar, or at church?

Proposals routinely rejected by Congress include mandating universal background checks; treating guns like cars and requiring registration, training, licensing, and insurance; banning private ownership of assault rifles and any type of weapon designed specifically for military use and mass killing; limiting the amount of ammunition one person can purchase, as is done with fertilizer and over-the-counter drugs; closing loopholes such as online and gun-show purchases. The most haunting and perplexing question of all is, what does anyone have to lose by the implementation of these simple, common-sense restrictions?

I rarely if ever hear anyone at an airport grumbling about removing their shoes, walking through a scanner, or placing their carry-on items in bins for screening; and I never see anyone refuse compliance, at least in part because they know their non-compliance would result in a swift removal from the airport. We’ve accepted these security measures as a normal and necessary part of life, and we willingly comply because we feel safer knowing that everyone with whom we share a plane ride has passed muster.

Yet the very mention of similar restrictions on gun ownership erases every trace of logical thought because of 14 words written 228 years ago by men who could never in their wildest imaginations have envisioned modern weaponry. Our Congress bears the blood of every life that has been sacrificed on the altar of the Second Amendment; but sadly, the citizens who have accepted death as the necessity price for their selfish freedom have blood-stained hands as well.

 If that baby who was orphaned in El Paso, that grandfather whose family is left without a protector and caregiver, that six-year-old who will never experience the milestones of life, and the babies of Sandy Hook who were murdered in their little desks are an acceptable tradeoff for the right to unrestricted gun ownership, we are a despicable people. When taking a knee to protest injustice causes greater outrage than the latest slaughter, we are a people of twisted values. When our only response to human agony is the shallow mantra of “thoughts and prayers,” we are a loathsome lot indeed.

The NRA is funded by its five million members (and possibly some Russian allies), and Congress is funded by the NRA. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the NRA has since 1990 contributed $22,723,137 to electing members of congress and has spent $54,557,564 on lobbying since 1998. The top five recipients of NRA contributions for 2017-2018, according to the same source, are Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), $15,800; Ted Cruz (R-TX), $9,900; John Culberson (R-TX), $9,900; John Faso (R-NY), $9,900; and Josh Hawley (R-MO), $9,900. If you noticed all of the R’s in that sentence, it’s because Democrat candidates receive a small fraction of what is given to Republican candidates.

Of course, Mitch McConnell is also heavily indebted to the gun gods; and not surprisingly, their favorite politico is Donald Trump. Here’s what the Center for Responsive Politics says about him:

“The National Rifle Association’s overall spending surged by more than $100 million in 2016, surpassing any previous annual NRA spending totals on record, according to an audit obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The explosion in spending came as theNRA poured unprecedented amounts of money into efforts to deliver Donald Trump the White House and help Republicans hold both houses of Congress.”

I don’t think we need look any further for the roots of the problem. Sadly, the solution is not quite so clear. However, we have to believe that Jordan and Andre Anchondo, Jorge Cavillo García, Stephen Romero, Keyla Salazar, Brandon Gales, Anthony Brown, Lois Oglesby, and Thomas McNichols–along with the other 923 children, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, spouses, sisters, brothers, and dear friends who have died senselessly in the last 37 years–are worth our continued diligence in fighting the great forces of darkness which have enveloped our nation.

“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good,

America will cease to be great.”

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Categories
Politics

Connecting Dots

I’m seeing spots! Actually, it’s lots and lots of dots! I’ve been seeing them for several years, and their number is increasing, though the connections between them have seemed confusing or altogether missing. Then in the last two weeks’ dizzying rush of shock-and-awe headlines and breaking news, finally a name appeared which began to make sense out of the galaxy of random dots: Maria Butina. Ms. Butina is the woman you’ve all heard of by now: alleged Russian spy, worked with Aleksandr Torshin, began traveling between Russia and the U.S. in 2011, moved to the U.S. on a student visa in 2016 and became a graduate student at American University in D.C., allegedly used sex among other weapons to carry out her assignments, founded a Russian gun-rights organization called Right to Bear Arms, and along with Torshin established a “cooperative relationship” between Right to Bear Arms and the National Rifle Association (NRA). Aha! Those random dots suddenly seemed far less random and more a part of an intricate pattern woven of Russian involvement in our democracy, NRA control over our politicians, Russian and NRA control over our “president,” and our Congress’s inaction on pretty much everything.

In a Guardian article published on July 26, 2018, Jon Swaine names a Russian billionaire alleged to be Ms. Butina’s “funder”: Konstantin Nikolaev, whose wife Svetlana Nikolaeva is “the head of a gun company that supplies sniper rifles to the Russian military and intelligence services.” Swaine states the finding that Mr. Nikolaev allegedly invested money in his wife’s gun company “sheds further light on the links forged in recent years between America’s powerful gun lobby and well-connected Russians.” Add those allegations to the allegation by US prosecutors that “Butina’s activities were directed by Alexander Torshin, a senior Russian state banker and an NRA member,” and I think we’re starting to see some lines connecting a few of those dots.

While Ms. Butina rests in her jail cell, investigators are pursuing charges of “illegally operating as a foreign agent . . . working to infiltrate the NRA as part of an attempt to influence the Republican party and establish secret backchannels with American politicians” (also from the Swaine article). It should be completely unsurprising that she has denied all charges. Meanwhile, we should perhaps take a moment to review the history of the organization which she is accused of infiltrating and using as a backchannel to connect the Republican Party with the Kremlin.

According to the NRA’s official website, the National Rifle Association was founded in 1871 by Union Civil War veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate, who expressed dismay over “the lack of marksmanship shown by their troops.” Contrary to a revisionist claim that the NRA was formed to drive out the Ku Klux Klan and help freed slaves defend themselves against racist attacks (a claim debunked by Snopes and other fact checkers), the real purpose of the new organization was “promoting the safe and proper use of firearms” (Ron Elving, NPR). “The idea was to educate a new generation of marksmen, whether for war or hunting or recreational target shooting” (Elving).

In our country’s earlier years, there was little or no debate about the necessity of gun use in everyday life, since guns were essential for survival during the frontier era. According to Mr. Elving, debate over the necessity of gun ownership began in earnest after four of our presidents were assassinated. During those years between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy, the NRA supported restrictions on gun availability, particularly for convicted felons and people with mental illness. Each time a new conversation arose, the NRA wanted to be involved but consistently worked with Congress and the White House toward implementing and enforcing prudent restrictions.

That was then. According to Ron Elving , change began in 1971 when an NRA member who had a large cache of illegal weapons was killed by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The NRA’s first lobbying group, Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), was formed in 1975 under the leadership of “Texas lawyer . . . Harlon Carter, an immigration hawk who had headed the Border Patrol in the 1950s” (Elving). Carter, a “hard-liner, ” made the statement, “You don’t stop crime by attacking guns. You stop crime by stopping criminals.” Hmmm, why does that sound so familiar?

The ensuing power struggle culminated in a coup at the 1977 NRA convention, resulting in Carter’s rise to the position of executive vice president and his appointment of fellow hard-liner Neal Knox to replace him as head of the ILA. Elving says, “The new marching orders were to oppose all forms of gun control across the board and lobby aggressively for gun owners’ rights in Congress and the legislatures.” Elving adds, “Carter proclaimed his group would be ‘so strong and so dedicated that no politician in America, mindful of his political career, would want to challenge our legitimate goals.’”

The powerful gun-lobby organization we see today bears little resemblance to the NRA that aimed to train hunters and a great resemblance to the new NRA born in 1977. In the words of Snopes writers, today’s NRA has “a single overriding purpose: to promote and defend the Second Amendment right to bear arms.” I’ve written before about their concept of what the Second Amendment actually says, so I’ll let that point rest for now and just mention the fear tactics shamelessly employed to garner support for their political agenda, especially under the leadership of executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, who famously wrote an editorial dated February 13, 2013, where he said among other things:

The president [Obama] flagrantly defies the 2006 federal law ordering the construction of a secure border fence along the entire Mexican border. So the border today remains porous not only to people seeking jobs in the U.S., but to criminals whose jobs are murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping. Ominously, the border also remains open to agents of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Numerous intelligence sources have confirmed that foreign terrorists have identified the southern U.S. border as their path of entry into the country.

When the next terrorist attack comes, the Obama administration won’t accept responsibility. Instead, it will do what it does every time: blame a scapegoat and count on Obama’s “mainstream” media enablers to go along.

A heinous act of mass murder—either by terrorists or by some psychotic who should have been locked up long ago—will be the pretext to unleash a tsunami of gun control.

No wonder Americans are buying guns in record numbers right now, while they still can and before their choice about which firearm is right for their family is taken away forever.

Mr. LaPierre goes on to say,

Responsible Americans realize that the world as we know it has changed. We, the American people, clearly see the daunting forces we will undoubtedly face: terrorists, crime, drug gangs, the possibility of Euro-style debt riots, civil unrest or natural disaster.

Gun owners are not buying firearms because they anticipate a confrontation with the government. Rather, we anticipate confrontations where the government isn’t there—or simply doesn’t show up in time.

Well, let’s just start right here with the horse’s mouth, or perhaps some more southern body part. Why is it that, although no serious proposal has ever come before our congress to ban guns, the gun clutchers by default begin every conversation by defending themselves against the plot to “ban all the guns”? I think the answer to that question is right here: that’s the brainwashing they’re receiving from the horse’s mouth.

The executive vice president of the NRA decries the lack of a “secure border fence along the entire Mexican border,” and–voila!–his newly purchased Republican presidential candidate makes building a wall the centerpiece of his campaign. Mr. LaPierre makes terrifying claims about immigrants who cross that border, or who might cross it in the absence of sufficient security, and guess who launches his campaign with absurd and unfounded claims about Mexican immigrants and continues to attack immigrants in every inhumane way he can think of? That’s right! The NRA-purchased “president,” who assures the organization that its $30,000,000 donation has purchased them “a true friend and champion in the White House.” Even Donald Trump is smart enough to know that if he doesn’t give them their money’s worth, they might buy a replacement in 2020.

So how much money does the NRA spend on politicians, and where does all of that money come from? As usual, the answer depends on whom you ask. If you ask the NRA leadership (and why would you?), the answer as of October 2017 was $3.5 million, according to PolitiFact. Well, that can’t be right. PolitiFact, however, says it is actually an accurate number but accounts for only one small pot among many from which the NRA draws to wield their vast influence. That figure accounts for only direct contributions to currently serving members of congress, elected between 1998 and 2017. Never mind the members who served during only part of that time or the many collateral expenses that arise from buying congressional representatives and senators. Selling one’s soul is serious business, and the Devil’s prices ain’t cheap.

When you add lobbying, campaign ads, party and leadership PAC contributions, and independent campaign expenditures (whatever the heck those are!) to the contributions for individual candidates (only those currently serving as of 2017), you get a much larger number than the paltry $3.5 million claimed by the NRA. PolitiFact says the full tally for “political activities” is $203.2 million for the 1998-2017 period. So they were off by $200 million! Are we going to hold a little mathematical error against them? Geez! They’re paid to buy politicians, not do math.

Also worth noting in the PolitiFact numbers is the yuuuuge spike in spending during 2016. What was it that happened that year?

Brennan Weiss and Skye Gould report in a February 28, 2018, Business Insider article, that although the NRA is bipartisan in its contributions, it’s only barely so. Of the top 85 career recipients of NRA funds, 82 of them are Republicans (citing a database from the Center for Responsive Politics). John McCain and Richard Burr, of Arizona and North Carolina respectively, top the list for career donations, with $7,755, 701 going to McCain and $6,986,931 to Burr. Florida’s Marco Rubio–number 6 on the list–is indebted for $3,303,355. Adjusted for time of service, however, Marco Rubio, having logged only seven years so far, is just as dirty as those in the top 5. Rubio, in case anyone needs a reminder, is the sniveling coward who stood on a platform with Marjory Stoneman Douglas survivors, in the immediate aftermath of their trauma, and excused his NRA association by rationalizing “They come to me; they align themselves with my purposes”–or some such drivel.

The NRA is also noted for issuing its infamous report cards, ranking senators and representatives for their NRA-friendly stances. Here’s just a sampling. The A-list is comprised of 39 Republicans and ten Democrats; the F-list contains 35 Democrats, two Republicans, and one Independent. The B, C, and D lists are far shorter, demonstrating that the majority of law makers who have been rated fall into the extremes, with one extreme (the pro-NRA group) heavily Republican and the other (the anti-NRA group) almost exclusively Democrat. (from margieroswell.com)

The next logical question is where does the NRA get all that dirty money with which to purchase law makers’ souls? For starters, the organization currently claims more than 5 million members, each paying annual dues. The base price is $40 for one year, with incentives for longer commitments, the best value being five years for the low bargain price of just $140. Those little tidbits are straight from the NRA website, followed by these statements, in response to the question “How does the NRA use my membership dues?”:

Your support will help us defend your Second Amendment freedom whenever and wherever it comes under attack.

In addition, your membership dues will help the NRA cultivate the next generation of sportsmen and women through our youth firearms trainings…empower women with our self-defense programs…and support our police officers with our world-class law enforcement training programs.

I guess that’s pretty clear: politics first, sports and law enforcement second.

In addition to annual dues, the NRA rakes in a few more million each year from “program fees,” such as money paid to use their shooting ranges, open to both members and non-members, with slightly higher prices for non-members; admission to sporting events; and fees for education and training programs.

The organization also takes in vast revenues in contributions. According to an October 15, 2015, CNN report by Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken,

Some political funding comes from big corporations, many within the gun industry, which donate millions to the NRA. But companies are barred from donating to the NRA’s political action committee, which the agency uses to fill campaign coffers, run ads and send out mailers for and against candidates. That’s where individual donations come in.

Private citizens, incited to paranoia by the gun lobby’s scare tactics, collectively donate millions of dollars toward keeping gun-friendly candidates in power. According to the same article,

Since 2005 [that’s a 10-year period, since the article was written in 2015], the NRA Political Victory Fund has received nearly $85 million in contributions from individual donors. After the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, donations to this political action committee surged as gun owners worried that their rights to buy and own guns were at risk.

While President Obama was calling for better regulation of gun sales in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, the gun clutchers responded by buying more guns and donating more money to the NRA.

Donations in the 2014 election cycle were up by more than 50% compared to the prior two years, and nearly doubled from a decade ago.

‘Americans look to the NRA to defend their constitutional right to self protection,’ NRA spokesperson Jennifer Baker told CNNMoney. ‘When gun control advocates ramp up their efforts to pass gun control, people voice their opposition by donating to the NRA.’

Then along came Maria Butina, and that dirty money just got a whole lot dirtier! Secret back channels; Russian billionaires; an organization long on receiving donations and short on basic decency, morality, and humanity add up to a much bigger coffer that now can afford to buy not just penny-ante MOCs but a moronic, narcissistic “president” who will allow his strings to be pulled by anyone who will feed his gargantuan ego and allow him to believe his election was legitimate.

Okay, we pretty much knew all of that, except maybe the spy/NRA connection, but that is the connection which explains why members of Congress continue to support a treasonous president, why their only response to mass murder is “thoughts and prayers,” why they are paralyzed to act against the treason and mental illness on display daily in the White House. It’s clear now that Donald Trump is not the only elected official beholden to Russia. Paralyzed MOCs are not just protecting a dysfunctional “president,” they’re protecting themselves.

Michelle Goldberg, in a July 20, 2018, opinion column for the New York Times, calls the National Rifle Association “the most important outside organization in the Republican firmament.” According to Ms. Goldberg, “Legal filings in the case [Maria Butina’s case] outline a plan to use the N.R.A. to push the Republican Party in a more pro-Russian direction.” She adds, “The young Russian woman clearly understood the political significance of the N.R.A. In one email, court papers say, she described the central ‘place and influence’ of the N.R.A. in the Republican Party.”

Goldberg quotes Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon:

I serve on both the Intelligence Committee and the Finance Committee, so I have a chance to really look at this through the periscope of both committees. And what I have wondered about for some time is this whole issue of whether the N.R.A. is getting subverted as a Russian asset.

Another dot is connected! Why were House Republicans so eager to wrap up their investigation into Russia’s election interference, declare no wrongdoing had occurred, and close their ears to any more uncomfortable information? Ms. Goldberg reports that Democrats on the committee were preparing to interview Ms. Butina and Paul Erickson, with whom she had developed an “insincere” romantic relationship. Apparently, the Repubs preferred not to know about all that back channel stuff, so they decided it was time to close up shop.

According to the Goldberg article,

McClatchy has reported that the F.B.I. is investigating whether Torshin [Aleksandr Torshin, Russian allegedly in cahoots with Butina] illegally funneled money to the N.R.A. to help Trump. Wyden [Oregon Senator] has also been trying to trace foreign money flowing into the N.R.A., but has found little cooperation from the organization, his Republican colleagues or the Treasury Department.

Funny how all those dots don’t seem nearly so random and unconnected any more! It’s all starting to make perfect sense. It’s terrifying, but it makes sense. I don’t know about you, but I’m keeping my eye on the Russian spy.

 

 

Categories
Politics

Gun Cliches

I for one have grown weary of the clichés used against common-sense gun laws. You’ve heard them: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” “Guns don’t shoot themselves.” “The only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” “Bad guys will always find a way to get guns.” “Blaming the guns.” These are not arguments; they’re ways in which those who have no logical argument to defend their position attempt to make the opponent look foolish. People who utter these phrases ad nauseum are those who have accepted the NRA brainwashing that the Second Amendment to our Constitution gives them unlimited rights to own any type of gun as well as any type and quantity of ammunition they choose. They’ve also accepted the NRA/Fox News paranoia that they must staunchly protect that “right” because our government is their enemy who (a) wants to disarm all citizens and (b) once that goal is accomplished, will then place them into slavery, kill them all, or whatever the imagined threat may be. Could we all take a few deep breaths and have a conversation?

To begin, these clichés are not only inane, they’re insulting. But of course, when you have no logical argument, insulting the opponent is all you’ve got to work with. I don’t know anyone stupid enough to imagine that guns fire themselves; yet this one is typically spoken in a smug, gotcha tone as if the speaker imagines he/she has just uttered the wisdom of the universe and left the hearer permanently speechless. Not quite. Everyone knows it takes a human being to aim a gun at another human and to pull the trigger. What many of us want, however, is some common-sense restrictions on who is pulling that trigger and what is being aimed at. Shooting for sport is something very few reasonable people oppose. Protecting oneself and one’s family against genuine threats is also a pretty commonly accepted reason for owning a weapon. No one “blames the gun”; people devastated by the mass killings in our country blame the people using the guns, but some of us would like better ways of controlling who is allowed to use guns.

Here’s another clichéd response: We’ll never stop people bent on doing evil from obtaining guns, so there is no solution. In that case, I should remove all the locks on the doors of my house, because a bad guy who really wants to get in is going to do it anyway. Lots of people are quite good at picking locks and gaining entry. And if all else fails, the easiest thing in the world is to break a window, so why bother with locks and security systems? And why do I lock my car doors? Same as my house: locks can be opened with instruments other than keys, and windows are easy to break.

And while we’re at it, why bother trying to enforce our laws against stealing, rape, trespassing, identity theft, driving while intoxicated? People just keep doing those things every day, so why not just stop fighting it? We’re never going to stop them completely. We’ve tried and tried, but there is no solution; so let’s just save ourselves a lot of stress, time, and money and forget about those laws. And why stop there? Let’s just throw away our law books, since every law in the books has been broken thousands of times.

Years ago, someone attempted to break into my house while I was at work. My alarm scared him away, but a sheriff’s deputy came out to investigate. Since the final place the person attempted to gain entry was my kitchen window, which is in the back of the house, the deputy said it would be a good idea to put locks on my gates. His reasoning was that a locked gate won’t stop a determined burglar, since fences are pretty easy to climb (for some people); but he said criminals look for the easiest route, so any obstacle we can place in their way will act as a deterrent. Will locking my gates provide 100% protection against break-ins? Of course not. Nothing will do that. But I continue to place as many deterrents as possible in the way of would-be evil doers. Shouldn’t we do at least that much to save lives? We can’t save them all, but wouldn’t it be worth it to save SOME?

The biggest obstacle to common-sense reform is the all-or-nothing thinking that so dominates some elements of our current culture. Masses of people have fallen prey to some gross logical fallacies, particularly the black-white fallacy which is all-or-nothing thinking. Enter the cliché “Bad guys will always find a way to get guns.” Following that “logic,” if we can’t solve a problem 100%, we should simply do nothing at all. This is where our Senate has been for the past few years, and they failed us again in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in our modern history. I say 56 senators should be looking for new jobs after November!

The Second Amendment to our Constitution, in its entirety, is this: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Those 27 words, combined in a confusing sentence structure not common in modern writing styles, are at the heart of the whole problem.

The NRA and all of its sheep can quote the last 14 words in their sleep, but they ignore the first 13 as if they don’t exist. They’re admittedly confusing, but they’re part of the sentence, so they can’t be ignored. Grammatically, what this sentence says is “Because a militia is necessary for state and national security, people must be permitted to own guns.” In other words, we were originally given the right to own firearms so that we could protect our country from invaders. Since we no longer have militia, and the National Guard does not require troops to supply their own weapons, the Supreme Court in 2008, in District of Columbia vs. Heller, provided an interpretation more fitting to our modern life. That interpretation allows private ownership of firearms for “traditionally lawful purposes,” such as protecting one’s home. I can’t think of anyone in my acquaintance who disagrees with allowing certain types of firearms to be owned by sane people for lawful purposes. However, insuring that only sane people who want to hunt or to protect their homes get their hands on guns and distinguishing between weapons for military use and those for private use requires a reasoned and logical conversation, which many people refuse even to consider.

The bottom line is that the second amendment is not and never has been blanket permission for anyone to own any type of weapon he/she chooses or to stockpile weapons and quantities of ammunition which serve no other purpose than killing large numbers of people. Whatever happened to common sense?!

I know the second amendment gives us certain rights, but those rights are not absolute; it’s not all-or-nothing. Every right we have has limits. I grew up hearing the saying “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Kinda corny, but it sums things up nicely, I think. I have the right to own knives, but that right does not allow me to stab people; and since 2001, it has not allowed me to carry my knives on board an airplane. My right to own and use knives has limits. As a State of Florida licensed driver, I have the right to own and operate a motor vehicle; but I do not have the right to drive that vehicle across my neighbors’ lawn or through their living room wall, to crash it into another vehicle, or to run down pedestrians on the street or sidewalk. If I do any of those things, or if I fail to pay my insurance and annual registration fees, my right to operate a vehicle will be temporarily or permanently revoked. Limits.

I also exercise my right to private property ownership. I own a house; however, I have to observe the limits on the freedoms I enjoy as a property owner. My right to own property does not give me the right to refuse paying my taxes, to operate a business out of my home, to use my home for subversive gatherings, or to completely neglect my home’s maintenance. I have the right to worship and live by the faith I choose; but if my chosen religion practiced human sacrifice, the law against murder would supersede the dictates of my religion. The first amendment (the one right before the second) gives me the right of free speech; but I can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater unless I actually see a flame, I can’t publish libel or slander, and I can’t use my words to bully another person.

The second amendment has limits. It’s insane to parrot those last 14 words as if they give blanket permission to do whatever the hell we please. Placing limits on who can own firearms, what kinds of firearms we can legally own, how many of those firearms we can legally stockpile, and where we can legally carry those deadly weapons are common-sense matters which I have no reason to believe our country’s founders intended to preclude. And they’re no different from the limitations placed on our right to use knives, operate motor vehicles, own private property, follow our own religions, or speak what’s on our minds.

If we really grasp the fact that we’re in this together—Democrats and Republicans; liberal and conservative; Christian, Muslim, and atheist (and all the other theological positions); gay and straight; black, white, and brown; male, female, and the whole gender continuum—that we have a common stake in keeping our country safe and strong, we HAVE to start having real conversations. And conversation starts with listening, really listening, hearing what others think and respecting their thoughts and feelings and only after hearing and understanding, speaking a response that addresses those thoughts and feelings and doesn’t simply repeat the clichés and talking points that get us nowhere.

Maybe we could finally agree on common-sense laws that would not infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens but would limit the activities of those who would commit evil acts. As is, we can’t establish consequences for those who purchase weapons with the intent to do evil, because most of those purchases are LEGAL. Would new laws keep arms out of the hands of all people bent on wrongdoing? Of course not, just as laws against stealing, rape, DWI, etc., haven’t prevented people from committing those crimes. And yes, guns would be available on the black market, as are all forms of drugs. Yet we continue to fight against legalizing particularly deadly drugs because we figure we’re at least going to save SOME lives, even though we’ll never save them all. Reasonable gun laws would also save SOME lives, though definitely not all. Don’t you think we should do at least as much as we can do?

I have locks on my house doors. I lock my car doors when the car is anywhere except my own garage. I lock my gates. Could anyone with enough determination break into my house or steal my car? Of course. But as a sheriff’s deputy once told me, most criminals take the path of least resistance, so whatever road blocks we can set up will prevent SOME crimes. Not every would-be criminal would even know how to access the black market. Some would not have the money to purchase arms sold at the prices that market might demand. Some would be deterred by the difficulty of it all. Not all, but SOME. I believe every individual person is worthy of our protection, worthy of our saving as many as we can, even though it will never be all.