Commentary: NRA reacts ‘hysterically’ to reasonable proposals
By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
John Krull, executive editor, TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – Last year, when the National Rifle Association made one of its election-year purchases of an Indiana political candidate, I got into a spat with the gun group.
I wrote a column criticizing the transactional nature of the NRA’s relationship with the candidate. The NRA responded by getting personal.
One of their flacks sent a letter to several state newspapers that argued that I was an out-of-touch elitist who couldn’t know much about Indiana, its people or its history. I responded by pointing out that my ancestors had settled in Indiana more than 200 years ago – before it was even a state – and that attacking someone for not being Hoosier enough was an odd strategy for a group with a mailing address in the D.C. beltway. I also pointed out that the NRA needed to keep gun owners scared and angry to keep funds flowing into the group’s coffers.
I thought of that exchange when the NRA’s new ad hit the airwaves.
If you haven’t seen it, don’t go looking for it – particularly if you’ve just had a meal. It’s pretty sickening.
The spot goes after President Obama’s children. It says that the Obama children have armed guards but the president is denying everyone else’s children the same security because he’s an out-of-touch elitist.
There are so many things wrong and offensive about the ad that it’s hard to know where to begin.
But let’s start with the premise. The reason that the children – and spouse – of the president of the United States have Secret Service protection isn’t for humanitarian reasons or because we, as a nation, place a higher value on their lives than those of other human beings.
No, we provide the president’s family with armed guards for reasons of national security. We don’t want the president – any president – distracted from the work of serving us by concerns about his or her family’s safety. We also do not want the president of the United States to be tempted to hand over the nuclear launch codes because some terrorist has a gun to the president’s child’s head.
We protect the president’s family because it is in our interest to do so and because doing so makes all of us safer.
But in some ways all of that is beside the point.
The NRA’s leadership isn’t interested in a rational discussion about this or any other aspect of the debate over guns. If the gun group’s leaders were interested in being reasonable, they would realize a couple of things.
The first is that the proposed reforms of the nation’s gun policies and laws are mild ones. The big three are calls for better background checks on people who purchase guns, a limit on the number of bullets in a magazine or ammunition clip and renewing the ban on military-type assault weapons.
There are no calls to take away hunter’s rifles or shotguns – nor any attempts to make illegal handguns for personal protection.
Yet the NRA’s leaders scream as if the president had proposed something as crazy as putting out an app that teaches four-year-old children how to shoot people. (That’s another brilliant NRA public relations move.)
Why? Well, the NRA’s leaders have a curious take on the Second Amendment. They say that it guarantees the right to have any weapon so that citizens can resist law enforcement officers or U.S. military personnel if those citizens oppose the government.
If the NRA’s interpretation is right, then private citizens have the right to own their own nuclear and biological weapons, which is absurd. It also means that the Founders of this country drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as a kind of suicide pact, another odd notion.
The second thing the NRA’s leaders have been slow to realize is that the organization’s members aren’t with them on this fight. Every survey of NRA members – almost all of whom are rational, law-abiding citizens – shows that they support background checks, limits on magazines and an assault weapons ban.
Why then does the NRA leadership react this hysterically?
Because the group gets a lot of money not from gun owners, but gun manufacturers and dealers. And the gun manufacturers and dealers want to keep selling assault weapons and heavy duty magazines to anyone with a pulse, no questions asked.
To do that, the gun merchants need the NRA to keep gun owners scared and angry.
So that’s what the NRA will do, even if doing so means taking aim at decency itself.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 FM Indianapolis and executive editor of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
January 19, 2013 - 10:30 am
Your revulsion of the NRA is duly noted. I don’t always agree with all of their positions either. But thank God we have an organization in this country powerful enough to fight an administration hell-bent on turning us into a quasi-European mess while stealthily eroding our constitutional rights in general, and the right to bear arms specifically, because of the public’s ignorance of firearms and how they are used by law abiding citizens.
January 19, 2013 - 3:49 pm
Perhaps Mr. Krull should take a second look at Obama’s proposals. There is a lot more behind them than meets the casual eye. Starting with the first two, which tell Federal agencies to obey the law, and then tell Federal agencies to disobey the law.
Then there is Obama’s “High capacity magazine feeding device” ban. More than 300 million of the firearms Americans already own use a magazine of some sort. Obama wants to ban and confiscate magazines, and guns with integral magazines, that will hold six rounds or more. Like virtually every .22 caliber rifle. Like millions of shotguns, which have to be “plugged” to use for most hunting purposes. But Obama is not satisfied with a plug, he wants a ban on guns with a capacity of more than five rounds. Like millions of “deer rifles.”
The bottom line is simple enough. Obama essentially wants a total ban on guns. He said as much before his stint in the Illinois Legislature. Steve Croly, Obama’s gun czar said as much three weeks ago. And these proposals are just a start on getting what Obama wants.
Stranger
January 20, 2013 - 5:58 am
Mr. Krull-
Here’s another perspective: I believe you are some type of unreconstructed Neanderthal if you disagree that enormous amounts of strife and bloodshed have been caused by the First Amendment.
Therefore, because it is such a dangerous thing, we need to take “common sense” and “reasonable” efforts to monitor and regulate communications that could harm others. We need to do this for the children.
No child should live under the specter of death from war and pestilence caused by the communications that start fights, perpetuate gender and racial strife and even start wars.
In fact, free speech is so dangerous that perhaps it is time that only the police and military should possess First Amendment protections.
Now, turning off the sarcasm: this seems like a silly idea….but no different than what some people in power are proposing.
Is your Amendment next?
Join us in supporting the ENTIRE U.S. Constitution.
January 22, 2013 - 12:59 pm
You state “There are no calls to take away hunter’s rifles or shotguns – nor any attempts to make illegal handguns for personal protection”, however banning magazines with a capacity of more then 10 rds. would ban certain weapons used for self defense. I guess you have not researched Obama’s position on gun control. What Obama Really Believes About The Second Amendment: People Shouldn’t Have Guns. Maybe you sound read his past position on this issue.
Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/01/what-obama-really-believes-about-the-second-amendment-people-shouldnt-have-guns/#ixzz2IjD8PtUp
It is evident you do not understand the meaning of the Second Amendment. “The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us. If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and ammunition that the Nazis had, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/10/the-right-to-shoot-tyrants-not-deer/#ixzz2Ij4fgR8C
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News flash the NRA receives the vast majority of it’s donations from it’s members and not from gun manufacturers. And it’s members overwhelmingly support the NRA’s position against gun control and not your aledged surveys that you state support AWB and high capacity magazines, which they don’t support.
In you desire to ban semi-auto firearms, and magazines that are used for self-defense you fail to understand the unintended consequences of such bans. Criminals do not respect any gun control bans and always will find sources to obtain the most powerful weapons to commit crimes, so why shouldn’t law abiding citizens have comparable weapons for protection?
But why should the public believe articles on gun control written by those that have not investigated the facts and just write their opinions?
It would be nice if you like the rest of the Liberal Media would investigate the real facts about the failure of the previous AWB and the failure of gun control to have an effect on gun violence or a reduction on prevent crime, instead of using the normal talking points for gun control.
January 22, 2013 - 2:46 pm
Mr. Krull
You stated: Well, the NRA’s leaders have a curious take on the Second Amendment. They say that it guarantees the right to have any weapon so that citizens can resist law enforcement officers or U.S. military personnel if those citizens oppose the government.
Strange that a new Poll taken states that “65 percent of Americans see guns as protection against tyranny”.
http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/01/19/poll-65-percent-of-americans-see-guns-as-protection-against-tyranny/
Seems to disprove your opinion of what the public believes along with the NRA.