@NRA - I know @POTUS used a lot of three dollar words, which made it hard for you to understand…but that's not what he said, or is doing.
— WhenRightIsWrong (@RightAllWrong) January 5, 2016
Imagine an America in which an 11% minority is allowed veto power over ANYTHING they deem to impinge upon their interests to even the slightest degree. They’re granted the power to force their narrow self-interest upon the 89% majority because they’ve purchased Congress as insurance against their “rights” being diminished in the interests of the majority. No federal funds are allowed to support research that might adversely impact the self-ascribed primacy of their beliefs. Any discussion of addressing the needs, concerns, and rights of the 89% is met with howls of righteous indignation and claims that such tyranny is curtailing the God-given, immutable, and inalienable rights of patriotic Americans.
Looking at the above in the abstract, one could be forgiven for thinking it absurd, that such self-absorbed tyranny of a pronounced minority could NEVER happen in America…and yet that’s exactly what Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © are doing and have been allowed to do for years. 11% of the population, supported by the gun industry and lobbying groups such as the National Rifle Association, has managed to thwart virtually any discussion of common sense gun control. Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © refuse to countenance even the discussion of common sense gun control. Most of the 89% majority of Americans who “think requiring background checks on gun purchases at gun shows or online is a hell of a good idea” are even thinking in terms of taking guns; they simply want an end to a system that enables gun violence that claims more than 30,000 American lives each year. They want an end to the NRA and other lobbying groups being able to purchase Congress and thus thwarting any hope of taking action that may well save American lives.
[W]e’re sick and tired of gun deaths.
We’re tired of lunatics bursting into schools and slaughtering screaming 6-year-olds with assault weapons.
We’re tired of weekend warriors strutting around Home Depot looking for toilet plungers while dressed like they’re setting out on a midnight raid to capture Osama bin Laden; AR15 at the ready in case someone jumps the line at the self-check out.
We’re tired of heavily-armed home-schooled Constitutional scholars who steal or occupy property belonging to all Americans because… freedom. They’re not patriots, they’re gun-packing thieves — and not very bright ones at that.
But mainly we’re tired of dying from gunshot wounds.
As of January 6 of this year, there have already been 157 deaths by gun violence -10 of them children under the age of 11 — in the U.S. By the time you read this, that number will have grown.
The fact of the matter is that it’s too damned easy to buy a guy in this country. It’s shouldn’t be easier to buy a gun than to get mental health care. It shouldn’t be easier to buy a gun than to get a driver’s license. It shouldn’t be easier to buy a gun than to board an airplane. Too many innocent people die in America because virtually anyone with a pulse can obtain a gun. When people on the government’s terrorism watch list are barred from flying but not from purchasing a gun, you have to know that something is very, very wrong. Only someone lacking a sense of basic morality could fail to see the immorality of allowing those deemed too dangerous to our security to fly the right to purchase a gun. That Congress could vote down a measure closing this loophole can and should be taken and proof of the complete and utter moral bankruptcy of both Congress and Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes ©.
Tone-deaf and unwilling to recognize the immorality of supporting the perpetuation of a system that kills more than 30,000 American annually, the NRA- an organization founded originally to promote gun safety- is far more committed to the gun industry than to the preservation of human life. That there’s an 11% minority who seem to believe that the shedding of innocent blood is merely the cost of freedom- watering the tree of liberty, as it were- and who are allowed to hold sway in the gun control debate, is proof of how thoroughly and irretrievably corrupt Congress is.
5% of gun dealers around the country supply about 90% of the guns linked to crime AND MOST OF THE TIME THEY CAN'T BE HELD LIABLE IN COURT
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) January 10, 2016The problem is that for the 11%, the deaths of innocent Americans are but abstract concepts, mere numbers that impact them not in the slightest. You can ignore that sort of carnage when you’re a sociopath who bears none of the cost. As much as I hate to think in these terms, sometimes I really do believe that it will take gun violence being brought home- the death of a prominent gun rights supporter’s loved one(s) in a mass shooting- before any of the 11% begin to care about things other than what impacts them directly. I’d certainly hope that such a tragedy would be unnecessary, but when you examine the intransigence, inflexibility, and inhumanity of the sociopaths among the 11%, it’s difficult to see any other way.
89% of American- nine out of every ten of us- are tired of innocent Americans dying from gun violence that may well be largely preventable. No, I don’t know that we’ll never be able to eliminate gun violence altogether- not as long as the 11% are allowed a voice more powerful than their numbers- but not doing anything, and in fact advocating for making it even EASIER for anyone to buy a guy is about as immoral and inhuman as it gets.
We deserve better.
