The very powerful gun advocacy organization, the NRA (National Rifle Association) may have found their Waterloo in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. The death of 20 elementary age children has shaken America to the core. Both Republicans and Democrats are now calling on sensible gun control bans on assault weapons; limits on the size of ammunition clips; along with calls for universal background checks at gun shows and for private sales.
President Obama has assigned Vice President Biden with the task of finding solutions for the number of mass shooting taking place across the country. Opening a meeting with hunters and sportsman, Biden says he is finding a consensus among gun owners for two of the proposals that have been floating around Congress recently; universal background checks and a ban on large magazine clips.
There have been mass shootings in the past and though those shootings have sparked debate before, the NRA and its supporters in Congress have always managed to tap down any worthwhile effort for gun control legislation or to renew the ban on assault rifles implemented in 1994 during the Clinton administration, which Congress let expire in 2004.
It would seem so far, that the call for sensible gun control is not going to go away. NRA may be seeing its power evaporating, at least as long as it continues to rebel against the current tide. That current tide is a determination for lawmakers and those who support them to push for strong comprehensive change when it comes to gun laws that allow these kinds of weapons on our streets.
Americans are fed up with hearing about the deaths of so many innocent people. The Aurora, Colorado shooting in a movie theater is still fresh on our minds, where 12 moviegoers were killed and 58 wounded at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises”. How much longer will we allow the killings to go on before we do something about it?
The NRA is on thin ice as far as I am concerned. After a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden, concerning new legislation for gun control, NRA president David Keene said this:
"The vice president made it clear, made it explicitly clear, that the president had already made up his mind on those issues. We made it clear that we disagree with them."
It would seem nothing productive came out of the meeting; the NRA stood their ground as far as a ban on assault rifles or even background checks.
A large majority; 74 percent of NRA members support background checks on every gun purchased in the USA. This says that the NRA is out of step with its own members. I would speculate that the NRA's objections have nothing to do with its members and much about gun sales.
If anything is to be accomplished in Congress when it comes to gun control, members of Congress need to know that America is watching. They should know that our children are precious to us and we expect them to do something, and that is not placing an armed guard in every school or equipping teachers with guns.
This is an opportunistic moment for us and we must not back down. If the NRA wants to continue to hold to the same rigid positions without change, then we will just need to go on without them.
This is a republish from my website: Fidlerten Place