Tag: NRA

A Paranoid Congress and Guns

  
I am a gun owner who once again weeps in horror and disbelief at our Republican legislators’ most recent unconscionable actions.
From the New York Daily News, 12/04/15:

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans voted against barring suspected terrorists, felons and the mentally ill from getting guns on Thursday afternoon, parroting National Rifle Association arguments that doing so would strip some innocent people of their constitutional rights to gun access just a day after yet another massacre on U.S. soil.

A pair of Democratic measures – one to close background check loopholes to make it harder for felons and the mentally ill from buying guns, another to ban those on the terror watch list from buying guns – both went down in flames against near-unanimous GOP opposition.

Most of these same legislators offered up their fervent prayers for the victims of the tragic domestic terrorist attack in San Bernadino the day before they voted against measures that might help avoid similar tragedies. 

I couldn’t conceive the thinking behind their votes. After all, the GOP and its puppet masters the NRA assert again and again that,

 “Guns Don’t Kill People. People Kill People!”

Wouldn’t any sane and decent person then logically deny certain people, say those on the terrorist watch list, those with a history of mental illness, and those who have served time for felony convictions, the right to purchase and own guns?

Gosh, it seemed like a no-brainer to a little old country girl like me. So, why did our supposedly learned legislators vote in such a decidedly unlearned way?  

Carly Fiorina provided a clue in a recent televised appearance saying that a friend’s husband had been placed on the terror watch list in error and that she did not believe the list was accurate. I deemed that a small picture reaction to a big picture problem, until I looked at the Republican Party’s behavior over the past seven years.

Since the first term of President Barak Obama, the Republican Party has operated as an extreme oppositional force. On the night of President Obama’s first inauguration a group of powerful Republican Party members assembled in a not-so-secret meeting, led by Paul Ryan (who has just recently been elevated to Speaker of the House), and agreed to block the President in any way possible. Often this agreement has worked to the detriment of the nation as a whole. Common sense and the best interests of the country were tromped on in favor of making certain that the Obama presidency  failed. Treason, anyone? 

Instead of failing, President Obama was elected to a second term. Could Republicans and their NRA backers be concerned that depending on the outcome of future elections that some of them might end up on a no-fly, no-buy watch list? Has their paranoia gone to that extreme?

That could certainly help put their decidedly unlearned votes in a new light. Unless of course their favorite slogan is meaningless. Maybe it is the guns that kill people. Pick a side GOP. You can’t have it both ways.

Peace, and common sense, people.

Check out the Twitter feed of Igor Volsky @igorvolsky for information on the amount of money provided to congressmen by the NRA. Each time a congressman tweets out his or her thoughts and prayers Mr. Volsky supplies donation details. It’s a sick, slick business.

Paranoia is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV), the diagnostic standard for mental health professionals in the United States, lists the following symptoms for paranoid personality disorder:

suspicious; unfounded suspicions; believes others are plotting against him/her

preoccupied with unsupported doubts about friends or associates

reluctant to confide in others due to a fear that information may be used against him/her

reads negative meanings into innocuous remarks

bears grudges

perceives attacks on his/her reputation that are not clear to others, and is quick to counterattack

Sources: 

Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

National Institute of Mental Health. Mental Health Public Inquiries, 5600 Fishers Lane, Room 15C-05, Rockville, MD 20857. (888) 826-9438. http://www.nimh.nih.gov.


Paranoid Path

  

go with the masses
everyone’s doing it, right?
conscience doesn’t count.

pardon our ignorance
our lockstep adherence, too;
fear breeds yet more fear.

thank you NRA
for skyrocketing gun sales
and paranoia.

Does the NRA Really Have 4 Million Members? | Mother Jones Mother Jones › nra-membership-numbers

Imprisoned

his prison had no walls,
no guards, no bars.
no warden ever surveyed
the non-existent cells.

yet he cowered there in
a corner of society’s
design; backed up against
the lies he’d been sold.

afraid to venture out
unarmed. emasculated
by manufactured fears
he sprayed his own poison.

propaganda kept him warm,
that and the butt of his
forty-five. he could spew
the paranoia in his sleep.

in his prison he dwells
shackled and hobbled
hoping today he might
justify pulling a trigger.

  
I am beyond weary of being told after every mass shooting in our country that it’s not the right time to address common sense gun regulation. We’ve waited long enough. It’s time. It’s been time for decades.

Thanks, but no thanks

   
Got this in the mail from the NRA today. Obviously they haven’t read my Facebook timeline.

See the badge in the upper left hand corner? They’ve asked me to place that on my truck, car, boat, or God forbid, on my window at home so that, 

“When your local lawmakers see this shield on NRA vehicles, they see crystal-clear proof that if they push gun regulation, licensing, and prohibition, they risk DEFEAT on Election Day. It’s that promise, backed by NRA membership muscle, that stops gun banners in their tracks.”

Apparently, this shield has…

“…stopped hundreds of schemes to ban your guns and close down gun shows, gun shops, ranges, and hunting lands.”

I own a gun. One of these days I’ll learn to use the darned thing, but I refuse to become part of an organization that plays on our fears in order to pump up their membership. 

I refuse to belong to a group that fought against common sense gun regulations following the shooting of innocent schoolchildren in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, a group that instead said the answer to such tragedies was to arm more people.

The NRA was founded with good intentions, but radical organization leadership and a focus on political and societal manipulation has twisted that goodness into something profane. 

I’ll take that sticker. There’s a great stinky place just inside my trashcan in need of an NRA endorsement.

Peace, people!