How the NRA and GOP View “Gun Control” – Even Common
Sense
How Most Americans Define “Gun Control” – Stop the Killings
My update and add-on to the following original great piece from Vox.com in part and
from my previous blog post – same subject seen
here.
The only gun “control” most Americans want, some 2/3rd
of the public, is not to “for them to come and take your guns, or to infringe
on the 2nd Amendment and all it truly stands for,” it is this in clear and
uncertain terms:
To
hardcore Conservative Republicans, unlimited and untouchable guns and the more
the merrier, have become their last-ditch effort to impose control on a world they
believe is slipping away. Imagine this scenario of a typical GOP conservative
gun owner.
He
is an older white male, say, in his 50s, living in the Rust Belt or Deep South.
He will tell you that when he was growing up, there was living memory of a
familiar order: Men working hard in an honorable trade or manufacturing job,
women tending home and children, Sundays were for church, hard work yielding a
steady rise up the social ladder to a well-earned house, yard, and car were
dreams to be had by everyone. That social order in his memory was crumbling
just as our gun owner inherited it.
The
honorable jobs are gone, or going (even though he refuses to believe it’s his
political side that shipped jobs off-shore for huge profits and tax shelters). It's pure hell to find good-paying work (even
he refuses to support raising the minimum wage and having decent affordable
healthcare). Jobs with any benefits are for shit. He can’t put much aside for
retirement because he doesn’t make much to take home. His kids are struggling
with debt and low-paying jobs and high college debt (even though he won’t push
his members of Congress to take steps to lower student debt). They know, all
the gun owners know, that their kids probably aren't going to have a better
life than the did — that the very core of the American promise has proven false
for them, for the first time in generations and they are fed up.
It's
a bitter, helpless feeling for them. For someone naturally attuned to “order,
structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity,” well,
it’s damn scary and they are quick to tell you that, too. The role he thought
he was meant to play in the world, the privileges and respect that came along
with that dream, have been thrown into doubt. Everything is shifting under his
feet.
Over
the last few years, our gun owner has found a whole network of TV channels,
radio shows, books, blogs, and Facebook groups that speak directly to his
unease. They understand the world he heard about from his father and
grandfather, the world that's being lost; they understand the urgency of saving
what's left of it. Most of all, with his already heightened sensitivity to
threat further aggravated by economic uncertainty, they finally help him see
who's to blame.
They show him the immigrants crowding in, using up jobs and
benefits that were promised to American workers. They show him minorities
demanding handouts that are paid for with his taxes, even as they riot, even as
they kill each other and the police. The show him terrorists making a mockery
of weak American leadership. They show him elitist liberals, professors and
entertainers, disdaining his values and mocking his religion.
And
it is such a relief, to finally put a face to all the ambient dread, to have
some clarity again, to know who the good guys and bad guys are. Our gun owner
is a good guy, thankfully, from the kind of self-reliant stock that settled
this country.
It
seems like America's decline is a done deal, that the tide of liberal rot is
unstoppable. But the one place he knows he can draw the line is at his door, on
his private property, because he has a gun. He can defend his own.
If
the minorities riot again, or immigrant criminals move in nearby, or terrorists
attack, or some wackjob goes on a shooting spree, or Obama comes for his guns
... well, that's what the guns are for. He's given up a lot, but he won't give
up his autonomy or the safety of his family. He'll defend that to the end.
To our gun owner, another mass shooting is
not an argument for getting rid of guns. It's a confirmation of his every
instinct, another sign of moral and societal decay, another reason to arm
himself and defend what he's got left and in fact, increase his arsenal. You
can tell him about Canada and Australia until you're blue in the face — the
lower rate of gun deaths, the hunting exemptions, the seemingly intact freedoms
that they have. You can cite high popular support for restrictions on gun and
ammunition sales. You can tell him that not every incremental tightening of
standards is a slippery slope that no one wants to confiscate his guns. And,
the vast majority of Americans support gun rights, they also want some more gun
controls for our national sanity.
But then you are just another self-righteous
liberal on another self-righteous crusade, too blind or stupid to see how
governments always use people like you to disarm their citizenry. You've taken
enough: his taxes, his freedoms, and his culture. He won't give you anything
else or any more.
Our gun owner is not going to change his mind, not when he
considers his opinions over facts. Truth always gives way to rumor. Compromise
is a dirty word to the NRA and GOP hardliner gun nuts. And, Donald J. Trump feeds on this attitude.
Thanks for stopping by. Try to do what you
can to help overcome this tragedy in our country due to too many guns, not a
shortage.
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