Big Red Car here. Going to be 70F and it’s foggy this morning. Foggy! Sort of like the debate about guns?
So, the President has gone full court press on gun control. Yawn!
Big speech replete with emoticons and crying. Town hall with Anderson Cooper and hand picked audience with pre-approved questions. Democracy in action! Well, a certain bastardized form of democracy.
People forget that the President himself is a big shooting enthusiast, right? Here he is “doing skeet”! Stud! [Am I the only one who wants to scream, “Get that butt down into your shoulder, Mr. President!”
The President said, “If you like your guns, you can keep your guns.” OK, that’s not true. But, hey, he could have said it. Remember what he said when he was selling Obamacare?
Who is the NRA, Big Red Car?
Nothing is going to happen on gun control in America until and unless someone engages with the National Rifle Association. Nothing.
The NRA has been around for 140 years and wants you to believe it has 5,000,000 members. Maybe it does and maybe it does not.
In 2010, it took in $228,000,000 in revenue and $71,000,000 in contributions. This is not chickenfeed.
Its top guy, Wayne Lapierre, gets paid north of $1,000,000.
But who is the NRA, Big Red Car?
The NRA is gun owners — right? Innocent old guys clinging to their guns, religion, and Bibles, right? Young guys who like to hunt? Hot chicks — huntresses — who like to shoot guns, right?
The NRA is gun manufacturers, ammunition manufacturers, gun/ammo sellers and, only then, gun owners. Get it right!
The NRA is as serious as a heart attack. They are not playing and they will not be played with. The CNN/Obama bunch invited them to the big town hall meeting and gave them a pre-approved, pre-screened question — one — and they decided not to attend. You are surprised, why?
They have been a potent political force for decades and if you are from a rural part of the United States where guns are not really a big debate (more than 50% of the US), you do not win election or re-election without having a good NRA voting record.
The NRA is raw political muscle built on a foundation of raw political muscle.
How does one deal with the NRA, Big Red Car?
Dear reader, the NRA knows what it wants. It always has and it always will.
It wants the government to stop threatening to take away guns. It likes that Second Amendment protection. It wraps itself in the Second Amendment.
The NRA wants a seat at the table and it wants to be taken seriously and it has the ability to punish those who do not pay the proper respect to their size, history, clout, power, and moral rectitude.
The NRA is not playing.
What does the NRA not want?
The NRA does not trust those who say, “Well, you know that Australian experiment — the wholesale confiscation of all of Australia’s guns which were not protected by a Second Amendment — is worthy of some consideration, isn’t it?”
Who said that, Big Red Car? Well, for starters, a guy named Barack H Obama. The NRA doesn’t trust him and, given his public and private pronouncements and actions, they are justified in doing so. The guy does not have such a good record on telling the truth. This is where reality can really bit one in the ass. People start not to trust you.
You cannot expect to deal with the NRA if you make stupid utterances about gun confiscation, banning certain types of popular ammunition, and demonize them. They have enough clout to wait you out, to cut your support in the Congress out from under you, and to go toe to toe with you in the halls of power. They have been at this game for 140 years and you are going home in eight years.
The NRA will greet you, meet you, and beat you. They will wait you out. [Know who else does that? The CIA.]
The NRA is not going to kiss anyone’s ring regardless of how many public crying displays are offered or how many plants ask questions at faux town hall meetings attempting to make the NRA look bad.
What would the NRA consider reasonable, Big Red Car?
Before the Big Red Car answers that, know that the NRA is the best gun training and gun safety training on the planet rivaled only by the US Marine Corps and the US Army. They provide great training and if you want to learn how to shoot and shoot safely, go take an NRA course. Take a refresher and go to a range and shoot your guns until you are comfortable, proficient, and safe.
The NRA would make a trade in a second for gun tort clarity (not charging manufacturers of guns with a crime or suing them for damages because some shithead uses their product to commit a crime), for closing the gun show loophole, and for creating a “no guns” crazy person list.
The NRA would also embrace a big data solution of tracking who is buying a lot of ammunition at one time.
The NRA would embrace tacking 10 years on to all crimes which involve guns.
Know that the NRA does not want crazy persons owning or using guns. It’s bad for business and their gun manufacturing members are all about business.
Why hasn’t this happened, Big Red Car?
The reason is very simple — the NRA does not trust the President (all that Australian Experiment chatter) to tell the truth or to be sincere in the pursuit of gun regulation. [Note, not gun “control” which is shorthand for gun confiscation in the mind of the NRA. Sensible gun regulation? Yes. Gun control? No, thank you.]
“If you like your guns, you can keep your guns!”
Yeah, that. The NRA does not trust the President and the American people don’t trust the President. He’s told a few too many lies. Sorry.
So what happens, Big Red Car?
Nothing, dear reader.
This little initiative will distract the country for two weeks and then it will be back to Trump’s hairdo. The President will take another Florida sojourn to play golf with his buddies. The election will heat up and no candidates will tee it up with the NRA and the world will go on.
The President’s initiatives last for about about two weeks and the gun control issue will be resurrected when the next tragedy happens. Count on that.
And nothing, dear reader, will change until someone sits down with the NRA and cuts a deal. This President cannot do that.
Last thing — know that extending the FFL (Federal Firearms License) a bit broader, getting a little stricter on background checks, or any of the other nonsense contained in the President executive order would not have taken the guns out of the hands of the San Bernandino terrorists or most of the other gun atrocities the President likes to cite. They all obtained their guns legally.
Criminals and RITs (radical Islamic terrorists) will get their guns because they are criminals and terrorists. You cannot control criminals with paperwork. A guy who is going to shoot you is not fazed by paperwork. He’ll steal your legal gun and then kill you with it.
The answer to a bad guy with a gun is often a good guy with a gun.
One more last thing — the Obama administration is at an all time low in their enforcement of existing Federal gun related laws. So more laws to be ignored and unenforced will accomplish exactly what?
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m a Big Red Car. You have a safe day out there and, maybe, get a CHL (concealed handgun permit)? Peace!
