NRA has milkshake, shall we drink?
Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 04:27:05 AM PDT
I saw this little tidbit this morning - a $15M National Rifle Association ad blitz against Obama, and I've had my fill.
There are in excess of two hundred million guns in this country and they're pretty evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Why does the NRA think it speaks for all gun owners? It doesn't, but voices on our side of the aisle are muted and disorganized. We can change that.
I'm a Democratic voter. A Progressive. Three of those two hundred million plus guns are in my possession and I used to have a few more before lack of health care wiped me out financially.
Gun violence has struck close to home for me. A college room mate was murdered. Do I advocate gun control? Nope, he was shot over a rare gun at an isolated firing range. He'd gun to shoot, run dry, and was easy prey. He was out of state when it happened but I took the lesson - I lived in an urban area and would shoot outdoors at a popular gravel pit ten miles outside the city. I always had a magazine full of Golden Sabers left on my way out after this ...
I've drawn a gun defensively one time in thirty two years of firearms ownership; a neighbor with a drug/drinking problem came by and wanted to have a vigorous discussion on the front lawn over some imagined slight. I remained inside the screen door with a big grin on my face and a nice little composite pistol in my hand. He suddenly recalled he'd left something going on the stove; another situation defused by the ability to respond which would have gone to injuries for one or both parties and criminal charges thereafter.
The Supreme Court has recently provided a proper, individual rights interpretation of the second amendment, forever silencing the foolish canard that the National Guard are a complete expression of what our founding fathers intended by a well regulated militia. Oh, and the world validates this: Do you want to face Blackwater thugs loose on your street armed with nothing more but high minded principles? It should be obvious that our collective firearms ownership is keeping the Bush administration in line in some ways domestically.
I'll be more clear: firearms can be used for sporting and self defense requirements but citizens controlling the government is the third and most important reason this right exists.
What sort of policies would be backed by a "progressive rifle association" intent on stripping voters and support from the increasingly wing nutty National Rifle Association? I'd suggest something like the following:
The right to self defense is an inalienable human right that shall not be denied to any adult with a sound mind and a criminal record free of violence. Expanding upon this concept a society, being that which forms for the benefit of its members, must have the ability to control and remove by force should it become necessary the government which it has formed to restrain human wickedness.
Anyone wishing to own and operate a firearm must do so safely and to this end all children upon reaching twelve years of age should be schooled in gun safety. (Unfrantic your urban self - this is the norm in rural Iowa and we don't have many shooting accidents there). This training should be repeated each year through high school.
A liberal national concealed weapons carry policy must be created. Some states are more conservative than others in terms of permit issuance and this is a state's rights issue, but a well understood national minimum should be in place allowing those who are properly permitted to travel without having to study the laws of each state visited.
Fully automatic weapons, silencers, and other items currently covered by class 3 FFL permits should remain as such. Citizens should otherwise have access to the calibers, magazine capacities, and ammunition they prefer.
This needs a whole lot of work, obviously, but I'd love to see a more coherent expression of this fundamental human right happening within the Progressive branch of the Democratic party; much as the evangelicals are coming unzipped from the neocons the same thing is happening to gun owners ... and they have a lot of concerns over what is a small and shrinking anti-gun segment of the Democratic party.
If you want the rest of those red states to turn blue and stay that way this is a huge step towards getting the job done.
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