Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. It's one of those ideas that seems to have universal support, and why not? Even the NRA is on record supporting this idea. For example, the NRA President
David Keene.
Now, one of the things we have to do is keep firearms out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them.
This is what the NRA says, what they claim to believe in and support. What they do is something else; they reject proposals to do just that, like a new bill from
House Democrats intended to fund state programs for disarming people who have bought guns legally, but who are now prohibited from owning them. It's news but it sure ain't breaking.
The Hill reports the NRA's rejection email thusly.
"NRA supports background checks on retail sales to ensure criminals and the mentally ill with violent tendencies do not have access to firearms. The Thompson-Speier bill, which would fund programs such as California's Armed Prohibited Persons System, does not do this," the group wrote Tuesday in an email. "That program depends on the existence of a state gun registration scheme that most states have wisely chosen not to copy."
Since this involves the states accessing gun ownership records, which already exist in some states like California, the NRA naturally opposes it and defines it as a "scheme," no doubt calling nefarious motives to mind.
"a plan or program of action; especially : a crafty or secret one", according to
Merriam-Webster. Of course, this "scheme" has been in place since 2001, and come on, it's California. Shouldn't they have confiscated all guns in the state and begun a program of genocide by now?
Researching the California program, however, shows why there might be a need for additional funding. The police in California, as of this 2011 article from the NYT, were swamped, unable to keep up. Some police departments were unable to even try, citing a lack of resources. I'm sure the recession has been real kind, as Republicans never stop calling for more budget cuts, more public sector jobs slashed.
Detective Vic Brown, a supervisor in the Los Angeles Police Department gun unit, coordinates operations to disarm the roughly 2,700 city residents on the list.
“We just don’t have enough manpower to pursue every one of these cases,” he said. “These cases go on there quicker than we can get to them.”
It is no small task to conduct the necessary background work and knock on someone’s door, Detective Brown said. A case that seems relatively low-risk will usually involve four officers. If it is considered more dangerous, it might take eight. The priority, he said, is on people newly added to the system, because they are more likely to be at the address listed.
One can hope that the state of affairs in California is better now than it was in 2011, but since two California representatives introduced this latest bill in the House, I would surmise that their state still needs some help. The Hill mentions California Democrats Mike Thompson and Jackie Speier as having introduced this latest proposal.
They also note, in passing, the hypocrisy of the NRA; like I said earlier, it's not exactly breaking news that the NRA leadership is rife with hypocrites.
"Scarce federal money would be better spent on stopping prohibited persons from getting guns in the first place, anywhere in the country," the group said.
The NRA opposes any effort to expand background checks to private gun sellers, however, leading critics to question the group's dedication to blocking prohibited sales at places like gun shows.
And while the NRA might claim to have an interest in stopping some folks from getting their hands on guns, it seems that they're willing to write off anyone who already has a weapon in their hands. But that's David Keene for you. I wouldn't expect anything less from this inveterate fraud; his
PBS Newshour interview has enough gun rights clichés to fill a bingo card. He'll happily deny that the AR-15 is a military weapon, using time-honored technicalities cited just as much on Daily Kos as by NRA spokesmen in the media...
But the fact of the matter is that we have heard time and time again that these are military weapons designed for the battlefield. They're not. They're semiautomatic commercial rifles.
...while the gunmakers
(we manufacture those, by the way) market them as
military weapons.
Our new Bushmaster ACR redefines the term "modular" with the extraordinary ability to change calibers, barrel lengths and stock configurations in minutes – without the use of tools. Truly the most versatile and adaptive rifle ever conceived, it was born of a collaborative effort between Bushmaster, Magpul® and Remington® to create the ultimate military combat weapons system.
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It's the Golden Bullseye Award!
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David Keene would tell the mother of one of the victims of the Aurora shooting the same threadbare propaganda that I see here, about how more people get beaten to death than get shot by a rifle. Pity the poor, maligned semiautomatic rifle. In the interview Judy Woodruff asks him straight, what would he say to someone like that, the mother of a victim in a mass shooting. From the context, I think they were talking about
Sandy Phillips.
DAVID KEENE: It was interesting, Judy, because...
JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you say to her?
DAVID KEENE: ... because we're talking -- anybody who dies in a tragedy, whether it's an auto accident or beaten to death or knifed or killed by a gun, it is tragic. And I can understand her reaction to that.
But, in this country, last year, more people were, in fact, beaten to death than killed by all long arms, including assault, so-called assault weapons.
And never mind that the NRA fought the assault weapons ban, that it was watered down and filled with loopholes, that gun manufacturers simply looked for ways around it, to subvert it. Never mind that the NRA and the gunmakers showed their complete disregard for preserving life and reducing gun violence. Never mind, because that won't work.
And we're talking -- we're talking about something that has no impact. We have tried to do that as a society before. It hasn't made any difference.
There's no "we" involved when it comes to the NRA; they fight against gun control policies supported by vast majorities, including their own membership. And coincidentally, the only piece of federal legislation
enjoying their support that I know of came from a Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who just happens to oppose everything else that
we have come up with. Including the gun trafficking bill that did score one Republican vote. Of course, that's not really a coincidence at all.
Based on where they spend their money, the NRA is an arm (or, perhaps, weapons platform) of the GOP. Decades of Democratic cowardice have done nothing to bring the NRA over to our side; they've simply run rampant and continued to back Republicans.
But that's the purpose of the NRA now. Using the myth of the gun registry-confiscation scare, they work to block everything from background checks to this new House bill to help states confiscate the guns of felons. In their zeal to preserve the rights of Americans to buy more guns, they will shield armed criminals.
What does that make the NRA?