GRAHAM: Let me give an example. That you have a lawless environment where you have a natural disaster or some catastrophic event and those things, unfortunately, do happen. And law and order breaks down because the police can’t travel, there’s no communication. And there are armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods. Can you envision a situation where if your home happens to be in the cross-hairs of this group that a better self-defense weapon may be a semiautomatic AR-15 versus a double-barrel shotgun?…. I’m afraid that world does exist. I think it existed in New Orleans, to some exist in Long Island, it could exist tomorrow if there’s a cyber attack against the country and the power grid goes down and the dams are released and chemical plants are discharges.
One of the truly sad and indefensible arguments for assault weapons revolves around appealing to fear of the Other. In a lawless situation, we NEED…indeed, we MUST be able to protect ourselves. Without the right to carry an assault weapon, the Other, who exists primarily to take and destroy, may well rob us, destroy our homes, and rape our wives and daughters. Behind Graham’s words are an accusative questions: Do you godless Libruls REALLY want to create a world in which good, God-fearing, patriotic Americans can’t defend themselves and their loved ones?
A better question might be: Why must gun nuts insist on viewing our world as something dark, sinister, and perilous? It’s not that life doesn’t come without risk, but gun nuts and those who do their bidding have found it profitable to define life as fraught with peril- something that can, at a moment’s notice, require the application of deadly force to protect ourselves, those we love, and/or our property. The fact that we don’t live in that world- except in the feverish, overheated imagination of gun nuts- is beside the point. Gun nuts and their acolytes have an agenda to pursue, and if they have to resort to lies, propaganda, and invented facts…well, so be it.
It would be a whole lot easier to come to something resembling a consensus on gun control if we could talk to adults- you know, people willing to discuss things as they are instead of falling back on screaming, talking points, and unvarnished propaganda? There’s no way to negotiate with people who view the give and take of negotiation as a zero-sum game. I suppose you can’t blame them; it’s not as if this strategy hasn’t worked for them in the past. Intransigence as a strategy may be offensive, but you go with what works, right? That was then….
Those of us who believe the time for change is here can only hope that the momentum generated by the Newtown tragedy won’t be squandered. The NRA has been weakened and is no longer the 800-lb. gorilla it used to be. The outrage generated by Newtown and the NRA’s clumsy, tone-deaf response has created momentum for gun control that wasn’t politically possible previously. I can only hope that politicians will demonstrate that they possess the balls and the moral courage to see this fight through to the finish.
If the gun nuts and the acolytes won’t negotiate, then the only solution left is to destroy them. As much as I hate to advocate for that, they’ve really left no other solution available. Sit down at the table and talk, or run the risk of being steamrollered by the momentum generated by public outrage.
It’s a pretty simple proposition, actually. Your choice, y’all….
