Those who’ve seriously pushed to stop or at least limit American gun shootings and violence have been going about this all wrong.
We’ve been waiting for the nation, and especially lawmakers and their minions beholden to the gun industry, to finally reach their limit of victims slaughtered during gun massacres.
There is no limit for these people.
It’s obvious now that there can never be enough innocent Americans picked off one by one or during mass shootings to prompt the NRA and their gun-nut minions to try and stem the bloodshed.
Hell yes, they are, too, gun nuts. These aren’t people who appreciate the nuance of constitutional prose. They wrap their paranoia and warped faux-patriotism into the U.S. flag and parade it across social media like mental exhibitionists. They frighten reasonable Americans, inflame the psychologically and intellectually infirm and scare the living hell out of cowardly lawmakers who see this base as their ticket to staying in elected office.
I am sick of it. I’m sick of seeing these bullies dare America to stop them from toting weapons meant to stop military armadas to Walmart in case some other gun-freak loses it in the express lane. I’m sick of NRA lackeys swearing to protect a Second Amendment their revisionists have bent to create a mythology that has nothing to do with rights and everything to do with lethal wrongs that allowed a crazy man to effortlessly murder and maim almost 600 people in Las Vegas.
There will never be enough murdered Americans to jar them from their delusion. The backers of the multi-billion-dollar gun and ammo industry and their devotees see the 600 or so people martyred this time as just part of the budget of collateral damage in their war against reason.
About four or five mass shootings ago, somewhere soon after Aurora hosted its own massacre in 2012, those of us with a lick of sense hoped that maybe after the children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, or maybe after that office full of people were murdered in California, that the panting ammophiles would be shocked by the wanton bloodshed and turn against their masters at the NRA.
But it wasn’t enough. Oregon wasn’t enough. Not even 50 young kids in a Florida nightclub were enough. There has never been too many murdered, innocent people to compel the gunners, the gun lobby and the cowardly lawmakers who do their bidding to invoke reason and reel back our nation’s weaponized free-for-all.
Nope. Minutes yesterday after Stephen Paddock fired the last round of his all-American armory into his own head, the 2A trolls professed their flag-waving sadness for those who bled to death on the pavement at a concert and dared anyone to question their right to squeeze off a few military rounds when the urge arises. They dared victims from past massacres or those who defend them to evoke the curse of gun control even as the innocent were dying.
These are some seriously sick folks that defend the rights of people like Paddock to own as many lethal weapons as they damn-well please and strut them wherever the hell they want right up to the point they take out the equivalent of the population of a small Colorado town.
We’ve been wrong about all this. We thought the last massacre of Americans, maybe this massacre, would be the tipping point.
It ain’t gonna happen. There’s way too much money at stake in an industry that sees its public stocks climb each time there’s a mass shooting. And as long as this industry and their henchmen at the NRA pass around millions in Congress — like they do for Sen. Cory Gardner, Reps. Mike Coffman, Scott Tipton, Ken Buck and Doug Lamborn — and as long as they strike fear in the egos of legislators petrified that the NRA will donate to an opponent, nothing’s going to change. Club NRA will just keep these and future gun-shooting victims in their prayers and gun-lobby cash in their campaigns.
This time, however, we really can make a difference. We can set the touchstone for next year’s congressional election. We can let congressional and state legislative candidates know that we’ll vote against any candidate who takes money from the NRA or any organization that lobbies for gun rights or even gun wrongs. If your candidate says they aren’t blackmailed by NRA cash and influence, make them prove it.
Let Congress and state legislatures decide the issue of gun control without the NRA holding a loaded cash-pistol to their heads. Make this time the last time we just move on after a gun massacre.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@AuroraSentinel.com